‘I’ve been answering a helpline throughout the pandemic. This is what I’ve learnt about people’

Like thousands of other Britons, Sophie Gibson now does her job from her dining room table. Every day the 27-year-old signs on for an eight hour shift from her home in Sheffield (with her partner nearby in the spare bedroom) and listens to people share their stories of homelessness, job loss, domestic abuse, and mental health crises. They hope she will be the one to help them.

Gibson, a psychology graduate, left university in November 2019 and began working for Shelter full time as one of their 45 telephone advisors. After a decade of austerity, the housing crisis and the introduction of the universal credit system, Gibson and her colleagues already had their hands full. Then as the coronavirus arrived on our shores, and lockdown was imposed on 23 March, Gibson saw a change in not only the type of calls she was receiving, but what people needed from her.  

Shelter has estimated it will receive one call every 60 seconds throughout the winter, with almost 25,000 calls in the last two months alone, and more than 90,000 since March. Calls can last anywhere from 20 minutes long to over three hours. One in three callers is from a family with children, with 65 per cent of families homeless or at risk of being so. Gibson tells The Independent what it’s been like working on the frontline of the pandemic as the first port of call for many struggling to cope.  

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“Prior to lockdown most of the calls we were getting were about the housing crisis, about eviction notices and disrepair, all of which was ongoing. They were difficult calls but since the start of the pandemic it has been a lot more about street homelessness, people who cannot afford the rent because they’ve lost their job, or people applying for benefits for the first time. There has been an identifiable change in the level of panic people are ringing with.

As soon as we finish one call it is onto the next, it is relentless. There is a huge sense of anxiety which you can tell has increased in people during coronavirus. People are calling in tears pretty much every day because they’re so overwhelmed with everything. And although you never get desensitised to it, you have to always have at the forefront of your mind that getting emotional won’t help. You need your professional head on. 

This change was pretty much instant on 23 March. Thousands of people in the UK sofa surf without a settled home [Crisis estimated in a 2019 report this figure was 71,400], and on the day of lockdown many people said to them - you can’t stay here anymore. People were worried about having someone moving house to house and were terrified of catching the virus. We also had a lot of calls with street homeless people looking to take advantage of the government promise to accommodate everyone.  

As the pandemic has gone on we’ve had more people overwhelmed by redundancy, relationship breakdown, and loss of their homes as a result. I spoke to one man who had been through a breakup and was street homeless after being evicted from a private rental property. The man, who was disabled, was bawling his eyes out and halfway through the call said I can’t do this anymore - there is a bridge I know and I’ve been thinking of jumping off it.  

Of course my initial response was shock and empathy but I wanted to remain focused so I could get key pieces of information to help him - which bridge, which road, what was he wearing etc. As we were talking (we spoke for about two hours in total) he seemed to have calmed down and I was more confident he wasn’t going to jump but then the call ended. I called back and he didn’t answer. We called the police and told them where he was so they could go to him. Thankfully he was safe. 

A couple of weeks ago I spoke to another man in his thirties from London, who had just had his first child. His wife and newborn son were still in the hospital and he had gone home to a flat to find no heating or power. The man had lost his job due to the pandemic and his wife had also been let go. They were waiting for the first universal credit payment but had run out of money.

His wife and baby were due home the next day but they had no gas or electricity and no money for another 10 days. They couldn’t afford to buy food or nappies. Unfortunately he had called at 8pm so none of the utilities offices were available and I ended up having to refer him to social services. I really wished I could have just sent him some money out of my own pocket - but of course you can’t. He was such a lovely man in such an awful situation. 

Domestic violence has also increased during the pandemic and that has been reflected in the number of related calls we have been getting. One woman I spoke to recently was in the house with her abusive husband and three children. He wasn’t there when she first called but about halfway through our chat she started speaking very quietly and went into a different room, telling me he’d just arrived home from a night shift. She was confident he wasn’t going to come and find her because he’d stormed upstairs and locked himself in the bedroom, but I wasn’t confident.

His behaviour towards her had worsened during lockdown. Again it is a case of trying to keep your professional head on, get the information that you need. Trying to keep them on the line and keep going back and checking on them while trying to speak to other services to help. 

One of the hardest things is not knowing what happens to clients after you’ve spoken to them, but we do have happy endings too. Recently when a diabetic man in his sixties rang to say he’d been sleeping on the streets for a week, I was able to speak to his local council and get him into a hotel that night. When I rang to speak to him the next day I was thrilled to learn he’d been placed in interim accommodation, with hopefully something a little more permanent to follow.

I am worried about what 2021 has in store. Courts have been suspended this year so we’re expecting to see a lot more evictions in January when they start up again. We’re at that cliff edge and there will likely be more job losses next year. For me this whole year has highlighted how grateful we should be if we are safe and secure from violence at home. Lots of people don’t have that luxury.”

Shelter’s emergency helpline is open 365 days a year on 0808 800 4444 and via an online chat service here. It is partly funded by M&S. You can help advisers like Sophie keep picking up the phone, by buying a sandwich from M&S’s Festive Lunch Range.