A STRIKING homelessness worker says she is at risk of having nowhere to live herself as she can no longer afford to rent in the borough.

As workers at charity St Mungo’s hit their 11th week on the picket line, a floating support worker among the demonstrators told the Tribune that she fears she will become homeless herself after her landlord said they will sell her home in Islington as mortgages have “gone up so much she can’t keep the flat anymore”.

The woman, who is in her 40s and cannot be named due to her contract, told the Tribune: “I’m now looking into sharing with other people that are on strike who are going through the same thing, but I’m going to be sharing with about four to five people to be able to afford staying in London. How’s that OK in your 40s, to have to be living like a student?”

She said whenever an advert for a place pops up, she calls and it’s already taken, or renters are offering a whole year of rent in advance and outbidding each other. Lettings in the capital have dropped by 41 per cent since the pandemic. But she desperately wants to live near her clients, who are based in Camden, so she can continue helping them.

“I don’t want to abandon my clients. I see them on the streets all the time and I’m always so happy to see them. I’ll probably have to move out of London and commute every day. I’m still in disbelief,” she said.

She added that frontline workers at St Mungo’s “experience a lot of vicarious trauma” every day. Women have told her about being repeatedly raped or wanting to kill themselves. She said at the bare minimum staff should be paid enough so they can support themselves and live in the same city as their office so they can look after themselves and their clients.

“It’s horrible. We listen to things that are from a horror movie. It’s the very bare minimum for you to be able to function at work to be able to go home to a safe environment where you can recharge and go back again to deal with all this pain and trauma the next day,” she added.

Staff have been receiving strike pay from the union over the last two months of the strike, but she said the pay is still half her usual income. Unite is asking for a backdated 10 per cent pay rise. St Mungo’s offered a 3.7 per cent pay rise, which was rejected by members. Salaries for frontline workers at St Mungo’s start at just £20,000.

Meanwhile, the charity’s CEO, Emma Haddad, earns £189,000 a year.

Gareth Davies, a support worker at St Mungo’s, said: “Staff are struggling to afford rent, groceries and travel. That has a direct impact on the ability of staff to deliver the services to clients. You get very high turnover. But support workers like me who are working one-to-one with real people, you are asking clients to trust you often with really traumatic, difficult, intimate details about their life.”

This week the striking staff have been demonstrating outside the organisations owned by St Mungo’s trustees who have been “absent” in the strike. So far Unite has had one meeting with the head of trustees about the rolling dispute.

A St Mungo’s spokesperson said: “We are doing everything we can to work with Unite the union, so together we can end this dispute at a time when the demand for our services is increasing. We need to ensure the charity is sustainable so we can continue to deliver services to some of the most vulnerable people in our communities.

“We have made a new offer aimed at resolving the pay dispute and we will be discussing the detail with Unite representatives over the coming days. Bringing an end to this unprecedented period of strike action remains our key priority so we can focus on supporting people at risk of or recovering from homelessness.”