{"id":540,"date":"2018-10-30T09:19:29","date_gmt":"2018-10-30T09:19:29","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.urbanwords.org.uk\/sarah\/?page_id=540"},"modified":"2019-03-04T15:35:06","modified_gmt":"2019-03-04T15:35:06","slug":"not-home","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"http:\/\/www.urbanwords.org.uk\/sarah\/not-home\/","title":{"rendered":"Not Home"},"content":{"rendered":"

The probation woman had said it was a B&B, which had sounded all right. He\u2019d stayed in B&Bs as a kid, on holiday with his parents in Blackpool and Rhyll \u2013 remembers frilly curtains, bacon for breakfast, the smell of the sea when you opened the front door. He doesn\u2019t need to go inside this house to know that it\u2019s not what any sane person would call a B&B.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Not Home<\/strong><\/em> is a collaboration between myself, photographer Stephen King and the charity Justlife who work with people living in unsupported temporary accommodation in Manchester and Brighton. It is a novella, published alongside a companion text, also titled Not Home: a series of true-life stories with accompanying portraits.<\/p>\n

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DOWNLOAD NOT HOME for free here <\/span><\/a><\/span><\/h2>\n

If you would like to make a donation to Justlife in return you can do so through their Justgiving site<\/a>, but the most important thing to us is that you read and talk about the book.<\/span><\/p>\n

The Story<\/strong><\/h2>\n

Meet the residents of \u2018a shit B&B in a half-forgotten bit of East Manchester’ \u2013 Ken’s words, and he ought to know, he’s lived in room 1 for twenty-two years. Angel\u2019s in room 3 \u2013 she\u2019s got herself clean and has a plan to get her little boy back from social services. Room 4 is Jimmy, who\u2019s just heard that the man he put inside ten years ago is out and looking for him. Mike in room 5 is the newest resident, fresh out of jail with every intention of changing his life for the better \u2013 he just needs to stay away from the lads, and the drugs. Piotr and Charles share room 6. Piotr is a Polish labourer with a bust-up shoulder; Charles, a Londoner, has been sent to Manchester by housing services because they have nowhere for him to stay in the capital \u2013 he just wants to get back to his kids. And room 2? That\u2019s Ewan\u2019s room, but he\u2019s gone missing…<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The story behind the story<\/strong><\/p>\n

Over 75,000 people in the UK live in unsupported temporary accommodation (UTA), 50,000 of those in B&BS. These are vulnerable people living in insecure and often dangerous accommodation \u2013 no locks on their doors; no access to cooking facilities; dirty bathrooms; damp rooms; constant interruptions; aggression and violence; drugs and alcohol. This housing contributes to deteriorating mental and physical health, social isolation and premature death.<\/p>\n

I spent two years talking to people at Justlife\u2019s drop-ins in Manchester and visiting the B&Bs they were living in. I planned the novella \u2018in public\u2019, with a notice board full of ideas and questions on display at Justlife, and asked residents to read and comment on drafts throughout the writing process. The book is dedicated to the nine residents using Justlife\u2019s Manchester services who died over the course of the project.<\/p>\n

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At the heart of Not Home<\/em><\/strong> is a desire to enable people to emotionally connect with the experience of living in this kind of substandard housing. Justlife will use the book as part of their campaigning and policy work, and as a novelist, I am excited about having created a piece of work that has the potential to effect change. Stories allow us to step into someone else\u2019s shoes, however uncomfortable that might be. My hope is that the people who read the book will both enjoy and be outraged by it, and might be inspired them to make their own voices heard in the fight for change.<\/p>\n

If you want to get your hands on one of the 1,000 copies we are giving away for free please email nothome [at] justlife [dot] org [dot] uk<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The probation woman had said it was a B&B, which had sounded all right. He\u2019d stayed in B&Bs as a kid, on holiday with his parents in Blackpool and Rhyll \u2013 remembers frilly curtains, bacon for breakfast, the smell of … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-540","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.urbanwords.org.uk\/sarah\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/540","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.urbanwords.org.uk\/sarah\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.urbanwords.org.uk\/sarah\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.urbanwords.org.uk\/sarah\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.urbanwords.org.uk\/sarah\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=540"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"http:\/\/www.urbanwords.org.uk\/sarah\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/540\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":566,"href":"http:\/\/www.urbanwords.org.uk\/sarah\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/540\/revisions\/566"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.urbanwords.org.uk\/sarah\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=540"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}