I’ve been homeless & living on the street for more than a year – I can’t access Universal Credit because I lost my phone

A HOMELESS woman has been living on the streets for more than a year – and she can’t get Universal Credit because she lost her phone.

Zam Webb, 29, currently sleeps in a hostel but has been homeless for a year and four months and has to resort to collecting money on the streets.

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Zam Webb says she is ‘stuck’ in her situation[/caption]

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Ms Webb hasn’t been able to access Universal Credit after losing her phone[/caption]

She needs money for bus fares, a new phone, laundry, toiletries and food and drink and cannot access her Universal Credit.

Ms Webb lost her job as a chef at a Premier Inn in Dublin “due to health reasons” and ended up in London in March but then “fell into a bad financial situation”.

She lost her apartment and friends helped her out but added it didn’t work out because, as she says, she was “speaking her voice, for standing up for myself” and got kicked out.

Ms Webb told MyLondon: “Since then it’s just kind of gone up and down and up and down.

“I was going through a personal experience that put me in an awkward position to be in public, so I just quit my job because I didn’t know what else to do, and I tried to just see it through with my apartment.

“That didn’t work out, and then I lost a lot of money, I fell back with my rent, and then friends decided to help me because I didn’t see a way out.”

Before getting a roof over her head at a hostel, before April Ms Webb was rough sleeping, which she says had been hard for her.

During the day she had places to go, such as a park but didn’t like falling asleep at night as she was freaked out by seeing mice running around.

Ms Webb told of a time when she got into a fight after one guy approached her and tried to ask her to come home with him.

She described the ordeal as “the dirt” as she had to stand up for myself.

While Ms Webb said she tried to stay away from the worst situations, she said she could understand why some people used drugs, saying that in winter it was really cold.

Ms Webb said that she was glad of a bed at night and could use the shower she added that her room was small and felt “cramped in”.

She is without Universal Credit because she lost her phone “due to unforeseen circumstances” and is now trying to get herself back on her feet.

She’s trying to get her second-hand phone fixed but wasn’t able to pay for it due to her situation with Universal Credit.

Ms Webb said: “It’s just the situation is totally messed up.”

She added that she was expecting a call regarding a permanent home in the near future but due to the situation with her phone, she couldn’t be contacted.

In short, she described her situation as being “stuck”.

While she said that many people living on the streets had “lost hope for themselves” she thought if she could get a “small to-do list” done her future would start to look more positive.

Ms Webb is originally from Durban and still has family in South Africa but said she hadn’t seen them “for a very long time”.

As for her hopes for the future, she said she wanted to try something different and work for herself, perhaps as a therapist.

She is also considering studying photography or training to be a fitness instructor.

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She says living on the streets is ‘tough’, especially for women[/caption]