Jemma
Jemma
After a family move, I’m now leaving my role as Housing Team Lead after 11 amazing years. But I can’t do that without sharing my journey with you.
Back in 2011, I was working as a Ward Sister through a particularly difficult time in the NHS and I started really praying into my work future.
Just a little while later, something extraordinary happened with a basement flat my husband and I were renting out.
Each year we’d advertise it for young professionals. But this year we felt led to rent to someone other landlords wouldn’t consider.
So, when a man who’d just left rehab asked to rent it, we agreed.
But when we visited six months later, we found the flat in darkness and the tenant really unwell. His housing benefit had stopped because he hadn’t filled in the right forms. No rent was coming in and we had little choice but to get advice about eviction.
Then, as I walked down the stairs, eviction papers in hand, something completely unexpected happened.
I had a sudden, strong impression of Jesus standing in front of me. Deep down I felt that going ahead would be like asking Jesus to leave the flat – and I couldn’t do it.
So, instead, I told the tenant we’d go away and pray and find a way to help him.
Back outside, my husband looked at me and said,
‘We can’t ask Jesus to leave our flat.’
We’d had the same experience on those stairs. But we felt powerless to help. We didn’t know the system or how it worked.
Realising how complicated it was proved a real eye-opener. How can a person who’s struggling navigate such a system successfully?
I felt a powerful sense of blinkers coming off, and an awareness of the need for justice in this area starting to rise.
At a church conference shortly afterwards, a speaker from another city shared about her church’s housing response to the poor, and a nurse who’d left her job to start it. Two friends came up to say they felt it related directly to me.
So, after 17 years’ nursing, I found myself handing in my notice and approaching ACT’s leaders.
ACT had no houses at the time. I took on an unformed role, with no clear sense of what I needed to do. I spent weeks praying, thinking and listening.
I felt like I wasn’t achieving – or even doing – anything. I’d spend time on my journey into work just crying out to God in frustration.
Then, one day, as I was walking down the street I saw a familiar figure coming towards me.
It was our former tenant, and he brought a strong reminder of why I was doing what I was doing. He’d just been released from prison and didn’t know what to do next.
Not long afterwards, a couple in our church got in touch to say they wanted to buy a house for ACT.
We looked at a 5-bed property which could house plenty of people at the same time.
But then former rough sleeper Seamus gave an inspired word.
Not knowing anything about our plans, he told us he’d had a picture of two houses. The first was big but crumbling because it had no foundations. The second was a couple of streets away and much smaller. But it had deep foundations.
In the end we let go of the idea of the 5-bed house and found a much better, smaller one just a couple of streets away.
And so my role developed. I focused on supporting the people who lived in the first house, and then the second (which included our former tenant).
My learning curve was steep.
I learned to listen between the lines when someone said, ‘I’ve not touched drugs for weeks…’
I also learned about our limitations and the value of honouring other organisations and their expertise by referring to or linking with them.
It’s been amazing to see God’s covering of the houses, which have grown to 12 over time.
Every house we take on has a story, of how God has moved its owners to make it available, of how he’s led them to the right house, of how its tenants arrive and how they go on to thrive.
I’m thankful beyond words for what I’ve seen and been part of through ACT.
The guys are treasure, and God reveals himself through the faces, words and actions of each one of them.