Luke

Luke was very vulnerable when he joined our Princes Trust Team Programme. He was depressed and also homeless.

When we first met him he said “Nobody helps me, everybody has let me down in the past”.

He couldn’t see a way of moving on, didn’t know where to turn and said “I’ll just continue to sleep on other people’s couches”. When the friend he was staying with told him he couldn’t stay any longer, we helped Luke collect his belongings and stored them for him.

We enrolled Luke on our Tenancy Ready programme which gives young people the skills and confidence to live independently. Luke felt that our base in Bradford was “a safe place” and once he began to trust staff members he started to tell us about the chaotic life he was leading. Luke quickly began to realise with a little organisation he could start to move forward.

Our staff supported him to find somewhere to live and to furnish and move into his accommodation. By attending Tenancy Ready, Luke learned how to budget so he always had heating and food, how to cook inexpensively and how to be a good tenant and neighbour.

Although he knew all his problems hadn’t been solved, Luke’s mental health improved once he had somewhere secure to live, the skills to live independently and the knowledge that he could turn to our staff if he needed to. He also discovered that with hard work he could turn his life around. He now has self-belief, is positive about the future and has a job working at a hotel. He says that he now wants “to concentrate on moving forward”.