It is hard to explain the loss of a child. Grief, the stress and anxiety you feel. It makes you ill. And then you find yourself facing eviction with your young family.

I was at court, trying to fight that eviction, when I saw a poster for Wycombe Homeless Connection.

It was the first time I had felt a bit of hope in a while…

I was living and working abroad with my young family. We came back to England for what was meant to be a short visit to my parents. But COVID-19 hit and we were stuck. We stayed with my parents but couldn’t get work locally and what should have been temporarily. We always intended to go home. Our finances started to suffer but then the worst happened.

Devastatingly, we lost one of our precious children.

Everything changed. We needed a place of our own to focus on our family. We scraped enough together to rent a place of our own. Our eldest settled in nursery and my father guaranteed our rent.

We hoped that things were looking up. But the place we moved into was badly maintained and our youngest child struggled with allergies and eczema made worse by mould. Our relationship with our landlord was difficult and we had to move out at our own cost while repair work was carried out.

I’ll admit I didn’t handle things perfectly but I tried. I managed to get some consulting work back home and flew back in the hope that my family would soon be able to join me. But it didn’t work out. The work didn’t bring in enough money and within a month I was back finding consulting work but it wasn’t enough.

Our hopes were already crushed, and then the eviction notice arrived. I was at court trying to fight the eviction notice and saw a poster for Wycombe Homeless Connection. My duty solicitor encouraged me to get in touch so I did.

Margery, a Homelessness Prevention Worker, helped me understand everything! Whereas before, every bit of paperwork that landed on the doormat provoked panic, Margery explained what our rights and options were. I thought everything was urgent, but she explained the real timelines involved. Her support gave me clarity and the ability to pause and think.

Margery supported us as we applied for a temporary home with a local trust that houses people in particular circumstances. We were able to move to a new home before the bailiffs arrived; our family were spared the trauma of being thrown out.

The rent was affordable and we could save a little. We were finally able to move into a private rental property. My wife and I are now both working and our children are doing well.

The support, guidance and care we received made us feel loved.

Thank you so much to WHC for your help and advice. It was a complete godsend at such a challenging and uncertain time.

Please help us help more people like Arjan and his family.

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To honour the dignity and privacy of our clients we may change names and use stock images to represent our work.