‘There are good people in the world’: The impact of supported lodgings on young people without family

Usually, when I’m meeting interviewees for the first time, I worry they won’t be chatty enough. That I’ll have to engineer trust, a connection and rapport between us. This fear increases when I’m interviewing two people at once. Will they give me an insight into their lives? Will they trust me with their story? Will the conversation run dry?

My fear couldn’t have been more misplaced in Luna and Georgina. Luna, an 18-going-on-19-year-old, dressed in black and wearing homemade alternative makeup, looks over with an innate sense of trust at Georgina, who has just asked me whether or not she should wear her scarf for the interview.

While studying in sixth form, Luna moved into supported lodgings aged 17, run by Concrete Rose Collective – an organisation started by Mike Farrington (a former Big Issue Changemaker) that finds families, couples and individuals with a spare room and the desire to make a difference.

The location in question? Georgina’s house.

Read more:

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“I’m in a situation where I’ve always rented a spare room because out of financial necessity,” she explains. “I’ve had just ordinary people that came along through spareroom.com. And I didn’t really like having those people in my home.

“Then I had a lodger for about five years who was a young girl with really bad OCD, and she needed that bit of extra support. She couldn’t really live by herself.

“I realised, actually, I like this level of involvement, where I can be a bit like an auntie or something. So when the opportunity came for Concrete Rose with supported lodging. It was ideal.”

Finding a place to call home

Before moving into Georgina’s home, Concrete Rose organises a meeting between the host and the young person to see if the two get on. Looking at Luna and Georgina on first glance, the pair seem an unlikely pairing. What could’ve possibly bonded these two individuals together as friends?

“Bones,” grins Luna. “The TV show. Before I had even officially moved in, [Georgina and I] watched Bones together. And we got so into it that we didn’t even hear Mike knocking on the door to come get me.”

The pair excitedly talk over each other as Georgina adds: “There was a part of Bones that was just a really funny scene, and we both got it – just absolutely ‘my face is aching’, laughing.”

Both admit that laughter has been something that was missing from their lives for a while.

Georgina turns and, with a harder look, says: “Just to put this into some context. My son is very sick, and so he had a bone marrow transplant two years ago, but it hasn’t really worked. He was born with a genetic double mutation.

“So my life has become – or had become – quite narrowed down. Primarily, I’m looking after my son, and there’s this massive worry about it, which meant home life wasn’t really very much fun for me, because it’s overshadowed. And to be honest, I laugh so much now having Luna around that… we just sparkle.”

Sparkle is a word we return to quite a lot in our conversation, and it fits. There’s a warmth and brightness between them as they talk.

“She’s been more of a mother to me than my mother was,” Luna says at one point, burying a touching comment in a flurry of words.

Luna’s story began in Poland. She moved to the UK when she was five, and for most of her childhood, home was not a safe place.

“At first, the relationship [with my parents] was pretty fine,” she explains. “Then came the physical abuse, where I got hit because I was struggling to learn Polish and English at the same time. There were instances where I was choked or hit or pulled on the hair, or starved. Then it kind of got fixed a bit until I was a teenager… I realised then that what they were doing wasn’t good. And people were telling me, ‘Yeah, this is not good. This ain’t normal.’”

By 17, Luna’s parents had been threatening to kick her out ‘for years’. “So, I told my college about it, and then they got in contact with Concrete Rose, and everything fell into place.”

The Rose That Grew from Concrete

Concrete Rose founder Mike Farrington says stories like theirs are exactly what the organisation was built for. “I registered us on 12 December 2020,” he explains. “At the time I was still working full-time elsewhere, but I’d kept seeing young people who would be having difficult home situations and would then end up in unsuitable housing. I thought, surely we can do this differently.”

He named the organisation after the Tupac Shakur poem The Rose That Grew from Concrete. “It’s about beautiful things coming from pretty difficult beginnings,” he says. “I’ve always loved the poem, always loved Tupac, and couldn’t think of anything better.”

Since 2020, Concrete Rose has supported around 70 young people aged 16–23 through lodgings, mentoring and a new care leaver hub. “Most of our young people have come in at 16 to 19,” Mike says. “We always have a waiting list of about 10 to 12.”

Hosts are vetted and trained. “Application form, DBS checks, references, home visits, home-risk assessments, and then lots of training – trauma-informed care, safeguarding, policies,” he explains. “We have an independent panel that approves our hosts.”

But the organisation’s work goes beyond housing. Concrete Rose also runs a mentoring scheme in partnership with the University of Cambridge’s Widening Participation team, connecting care-experienced or estranged students with volunteer mentors for regular one-to-one sessions.

“It’s not about grades or jobs,” Mike says. “It’s pastoral – someone who’ll check in, care, listen. A safe space to talk.”

For some students, that mentor is the first adult who’s consistently there for them, offering the kind of steady encouragement most people get from family.

That steady presence, both from mentors and hosts, is what matters most, says Mike. “I get host feedback where they say, ‘I could never do that, you must have amazing patience.’ And I think our hosts are amazing, but they’re normal people, right? Not to say it’s all roses, but life never is.”

He quotes Mother Teresa. “She said the biggest problem with the world today is that we draw the circle of our family too small. Essentially, what we’re asking hosts to do is draw that circle slightly larger and include a young person in it.”

Widening the circle

For Olivia, now 20 and studying psychology at Nottingham Trent University, that circle changed her life. “So I was originally living with one of my friends, but it wasn’t substantial,” she says. “So my friend’s mum got in touch with Concrete Rose, and then Concrete Rose got me a host.”

At 15, she had moved out of her family home. “I had a really difficult relationship with my mum… she is an alcoholic and addict,” Olivia says. “When I was 15, I moved out of the house to my uncle’s and aunt’s. My aunt got cancer, and I had to move back in with my mum. There was an incident on New Year’s, and police were called, and they took me to my friend’s house. Her mum basically said, ‘We’re not taking you back there, you can come stay with us until you find somewhere else.’ I stayed there for six months, then my friend’s mum got in touch with Concrete Rose, and I got a host.”

She lists what the organisation did for her: “Loads of ways they helped me – paid for my tuition for all my A-level subjects, arranged therapy, Mike took me to my induction for Lancaster [her first university], moved me in on the first day, paid for my shopping, paid for everything for me. Even if I just needed a bit of support or someone to talk to, they’d be there.”

After dropping out of Lancaster, she returned home and fell into depression. “The therapy that Concrete Rose gave me was really helpful,” she says. “Then I got back on my feet and came to Nottingham Trent. I absolutely love it… There’s too much coding, but apart from that, I love it.”

Looking back, she says, “I’ve definitely become more independent, more self-sufficient, more grateful for everything I’ve got. The help from Concrete Rose and everyone around me has made me realise that there are actually some really good people in the world. I think I’ve become a better friend because I’m able to help other people the way people have helped me.”

Now she plans to become a forensic psychologist. “I want to carry on with my degree, do a master’s, and then eventually become a forensic psychologist, helping people in mental health hospitals, helping people in the criminal-justice system.”

When asked what she’d tell her 17-year-old self, she answers simply: “That it is going to be OK and that things will work out if you just trust people and allow people to help you, and there are actually good people in the world that will support you, and you’re not all by yourself.”

Domestic rhythms

For Luna and Georgina, that belief already feels true.

“It’s such a privilege,” Georgina says. “To think that you’re really offering somebody something that is giving them security, safety, potentially good memories.”

For Luna, that change has been just as profound. “Now that I live with Georgina I can take these walls down, not mask as often, and actually realise what is autistic, what’s ADHD, and how to work around it in a proper household with a healthy relationship,” she says. “It’s good to know I can rely on someone.”

They’ve built an ordinary domestic rhythm: shopping lists, cooking nights, the dishwasher rota. “We have a night that we cook, a night that we do the dishwasher. You know, it’s all very organised,” Georgina says. “Everybody gets a turn.”

Georgina smiles. “Preparing food for family is much more than just the cooking part. There’s the planning, the timing, who likes what, who can’t have what, and who’s going to clean up. But it’s fun. We try to keep to the same meals, we shop intelligently, and then we all dip in to say, ‘Let’s change it now, the weather’s changed.’ It’s nice.”

At Christmas and Easter, they cooked together. “We had a mixture of British and Polish cuisine,” Luna says. “We’d invited people who didn’t have anyone else to be with. It was really fun shopping for it.”

Both of them know their time together has an end date – Luna plans to go to university in Plymouth next year. “Actually, for me, it just feels part of the journey,” Georgina says. “By the time she goes, she will be ready. And for me, I’ll be open to having another person to support – if they can find someone as good as Luna.”

Luna laughs. “There’s no way I’m not going to keep in contact.”

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