Chloe’s story

Chloe’s journey towards recovery is about much more than resolving her homelessness. Five years ago, she was in a relationship which began to go wrong when her partner was taking all her money to buy drugs. One day, after being surrounded by them for some time, she tried what her partner had been buying, and found herself facing addiction within a toxic relationship environment, which included domestic violence. This escalated to a situation whereby Chloe lost her one-bedroom flat as she couldn’t keep up with rent; she also didn’t want to go back to the flat, as it was the address her partner knew, and she was trying to escape him.

This left Chloe between sofa-surfing and sleeping rough during the early stages of the pandemic, until she realised she needed help, so approached Greenwich council. “I’m very stubborn, I won’t go asking for help until I really have to. I hid my situation from my family for a long time.” That was when she was allocated Francis, who works for Thames Reach’s Greenwich Navigators team, as her support worker.

Chloe speaks about the support she has been getting from Francis, who has been working with her for the past eight months. “He’s been great. Without him I’d be nowhere.”  She says that she is able to ask for support with different things as she navigates her recovery, whether that is signposting for housing, food banks or any other issue she has questions about.

She is now in supported housing, sharing with three women in a house that she clearly loves; she remarks how clean and suitable it is for her as she is on a good trajectory away from drugs and homelessness, as well as receiving the right help for her mental health. Chloe says that she wants to sort out all her different issues, but she knows that it can only be done one step at a time, and being in stable accommodation is the foundation she needs.

Chloe is looking forward to doing things that help her mental health, as she currently avoids groups due to her past. She likes the idea of cooking classes, and has a talent for hair. She does the hair of the women she shares accommodation with, and in the future will look to getting qualified and pursuing it as a career.

“I’m not waking up every morning and thinking of drink; if there weren’t hope with Thames Reach, with Francis, and the way he speaks with me and listens to me, I would have just left it, and I would have suffered. I would probably still be out there now.

“Sometimes I wake up happy, other days I wake up sad and I don’t know why, but it happens to everyone. Like yesterday, I woke up sad, but I looked around and thought, ‘I’m here now’, and trust me, I’m not going back.”