I had nowhere to sleep, now I’m a homeowner, and a doctor.

Rose* was 23, training to be a doctor, but was on the brink of homelessness, and had nowhere to sleep. 

It sounds like an unlikely combination, especially medicine is one of the most demanding, prestigious degrees, and careers in the country, but homelessness doesn’t follow a script. It creeps in through the cracks of a life under pressure, and by the time Rose reached out to Depaul UK, she had been using a food bank for years, and sofa-surfing for months with no clear end in sight.

Growing up in a household with difficult dynamics, Rose had learned early to be resilient. When she left for Manchester University to study medicine, she threw herself into it. She said her third year, despite falling during Covid, was one of the best of her life.  Living in a student house of ten as part of her bubble, with small weekend gatherings and the outside world keeping its distance, she found an unexpected kind of belonging. She was happy, settled, and doing well. 

Then everything fell apart.

A family crisis in her fourth year left Rose alone, and soon, the emotional toll became a financial one. She was living in halls on student finance, continuing to rely on a food bank to eat, spending all her time studying hard, and when a serious issue arose that threatened her place on the course, she reached a point of crisis, and became mentally unwell. By the end of her fourth year, occupational health ruled she was too unwell to continue training as a doctor and said she would need to take a year out to help herself both physically and mentally.

This meant she could no longer stay in halls, but she had nowhere else to go.

A health advisor pointed her toward Depaul’s Pathfinders service in Manchester, and she said what happened next still surprises her when she thinks about it, she said:

I was so shocked how quickly everything turned around, and how much support I got straight away.

Within the same week, Rose had a roof over her head and a part-time job, after she had spent weeks walking around the city centre, handing her CV into cafes – she had landed work at a pharmacy. Depaul helped her into a shared flat, covering the deposit, the first month’s rent, and acting as guarantor. Her caseworker, Reheeha, became something Rose hadn’t felt she’d had in a long time – someone on her side, and firmly in her corner. Rose added: I felt that she genuinely cared, and for the first time, I felt like I had someone to lean on.”

The year out became a year back. Rose worked, paid her rent, attended therapy, and rebuilt herself physically and mentally until she was well enough to return to her degree. She finished. She qualified, and she is now a junior doctor.

She recently bought her first house – a two-bedroom place near Blackpool with a garden, a black cat, and she says she is living  a life she genuinely loves.

Her work has given her something that can’t be taught in a lecture theatre, especially as she sees patients from every background: “It makes me a better doctor,” she says quietly, “I come at it quite differently.”

To anyone facing what she once faced, her message is simple:

There is help if you look for it. There is a lot more help than you might think.