posted on 2018-08-16, 13:53authored bySaoirse Caitlin O'Shea
I’m a non-binary trans person physically ‘transitioning’ and living in the NE of England. I ‘came out’ a number of years ago and subsequently lost family and home. Underemployed on a zero hour contract that pays so little, I now live in fuel poverty in subsidised social housing and eat food supplied by a food bank. But I am thankful that I am no longer homeless; aged 52 I spent six months through the Winter and Spring of 2015/16 rough sleeping. What I wake to is fear of eviction if I can’t pay my rent – it forecloses my life to the extent that I fantasize about making myself homeless again just to escape that pervasive fear. After paying rent, council tax, electricity, water and outstanding debts I have less than £7 per week to live on. I was once an academic.
History
Citation
Graduate Journal of Social Science, 2018, 14(2), pp. 47–57
Author affiliation
/Organisation/COLLEGE OF SOCIAL SCIENCES, ARTS AND HUMANITIES/School of Business