When 57-year-old grandmother-of-three Joanne Bradley was told her three-year wait on Newport’s housing register was coming to an end she couldn’t believe what she was hearing. The full-time cleaner who has lived in the city all her life “cried with joy” at the news her “nightmare” was about to end as she had been selected, along with another 12 homeless people, to live in one of Wales’ first housing developments where cheap, modular units are used to address urgent housing need.
Taking off her apron and puffing up one of her eleven expertly colour coordinated cushions on her sofa for a picture, house-proud Joanne is not someone ordinarily associated with homelessness, yet her plight is indicative of a national crisis affecting many thousands across the country. She has found herself in this position because despite working hard all of her life she can’t afford to privately rent on her own.
After losing her family home in nearby Alway where she had brought up her children following the break down of her relationship, she has spent many “lonely” months on the city’s thousands-long housing waiting list and has lived in three budget hotels where staff told her not to leave her door unlocked, before she was relieved from her “nightmare” by being chosen as one of the residents to live in the pioneering Hill Street House modular development near Newport city centre on the site of a public car park.
