52 Lives

#489 Erin

Request: Donations / Gifts / Kind Messages

This week, we’d like to help 21 year old Erin, who has been sleeping on the streets.

Erin grew up with relatives after being removed from her parents’ care due to neglect. When she was 15, she started drinking, and by 17, she was kicked out of home because of her alcohol use. Erin was sofa surfing at first, but ended up living on the street.

She says being street homeless was the worst time of her life. “I thought sofa surfing was hard until I ran out of options and ended up on the street. I have never felt so scared, cold and hungry.”

While she was living on the street, she was also arrested for drunken behaviour and threatened with prison. She was terrified. So with the support of her probation team and her keyworker, she’s been working really hard to change her life.

A homelessness charity has helped Erin to find a council flat – it is a huge moment for her and she’s so proud to have her own home. But when her support worker visited, she saw that Erin had almost nothing: no furniture, no TV, barely any clothes or shoes.

She said: “I recently saw Erin at her new flat when I visited to help set up her utilities. It made me sad to see how few personal belongings Erin had. She is a lovely young girl who is always polite and appreciates any support she is offered. She has no family support and I feel Erin is very deserving of some kindness.”

Erin said: “I can’t believe how lucky I am to be given a flat and I can’t wait to make it my home. I have tried working but it was impossible when I had nowhere to live, I am now looking for work and for the first time in years I feel like I have a future.”

We’d like to help Erin get set up in her new home and also help to pay for any training courses or anything she needs to help her start working too.

*Name has been changed

What We Need

1. Donations: We'll use 100% your donations to help Erin. You can donate online or by text using the details below.

2. Gifts from a wishlist: We've set up a wishlist for Erin - some things she needs for her house and also a few nice gifts for her as well. To buy something from the list, just add it to your basket and choose the 'gift registry address' when you check out. 

3. Kind Messages: To send a kind message for Erin, just write a message in the form below (your contact details won't be passed on), or you can post a message to: 52 Lives, Life # 489, PO Box 3154, Reading, RG1 9AT.

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What We Did

We raised more than £1000 to help Erin, a young woman who had been homeless. And some donations from the amazing Dusk Brothers is pushing that up even higher. You have bought most of the items on her wishlist and kind messages for her are arriving in the post every day. One of our previous 'lives' has even asked us to take some donations we had remaining to help him and use them to help Erin instead. So much kindness.

We’ve already been able to buy bedroom furniture and a TV for Erin and will be able to do so much more over the coming weeks. Thank you all so much! This is a message we received from her support worker 💌

I’ll share more updates and some photos once all the furniture is in.