That first night in the home, I just wept and wept, but I had no other choice (Picture: Inge Hunter)

‘It might take us a couple of days for us to find you accommodation. Have you got anywhere to stay tonight?’, asked the social worker.

I was 17 and had just been made homeless after familial breakdown. I’d never been in a situation like this before, and given I already found it hard to trust people, I couldn’t put all my faith in this woman. 

So I lied, and said I did. 

What followed were a couple of nights of street homelessness, where I went out in the evenings to bars where my friends worked, and asked to sleep in their staff rooms after closing. 

I was still underage, so the state had a duty of care that extended up until my 18th birthday. But as I was over 16, I wasn’t really a ‘child’ either. My options were limited. 

They found a room for me in a young person’s hostel. Initially I was glad it all happened so quickly, but then I got there. 

It was horrible. The bed and carpet was covered in blood. I lived underneath a sex worker and across the hall from a drug dealer.

It was a big Victorian house and there were 10 rooms, with one care worker sleeping-in downstairs. Each room had a kitchenette and then a shared bathroom. 

Most of the other girls were lovely. I’ve never been to prison, but I imagine it’s a bit like that in that no one else truthfully explains how they ended up in their current situation. 

Like a prison, we were not allowed to have guests rounds, including partners and family. It really felt like we were just sort of left. 

That first night in the home, I just wept and wept, but I had no other choice. I was in the middle of school and passionate about education, so I just put all my energy into that. 

Unfortunately, college became a lot more challenging during that period of time. I had been given benefits, but once I had bought the absolute basics, like food, and covered the rent for the accommodation, I had £4 a week to live on. 

I’ was in the hostel up until I turned 18 (Picture: Inge Hunter)

My bus ticket to school and back for one day cost me £3.20. It meant that most mornings I would be walking an hour and 15 minutes, and in the evening I would stay at the library as long as possible before walking back. 

Even when I found the time to do my homework, my grades were slipping. It’s incredibly hard to focus when you’re worried about being a homeless teen. 

I knew I needed to make money – especially if I was going to find myself on the street again, once the hostel kicked me out at 18. 

I had a friend who worked in a bar, and I would ask him if I could buy some of his leftover alcohol for parties because I couldn’t get it from the shop without ID. I obviously wasn’t hosting any soirees, but I would sell it on the street.

I would make these long island ice teas and cosmopolitans with the alcohol. I used to get plastic milkshake containers and I would use the ice from the bar to shake them up. I’d wait until nighttime and then I’d go into the centre of town. 

I’d look for clubs with long queues, or university balls, and I would sell them to people for like £15. I think homelessness breeds entrepreneurism and I had no other choice, so came up with this solution – which worked! 

I would also sell a bit to the girls in the hostel, and we became a bit of a pack. 

We’d go on trips to the local sex health clinic to pick up tampons, as we had no money to buy them. 

And we’d look out for each other. You wouldn’t believe how many predatory men know where young girls’ hostels are. There were always a few who would just stand opposite, staring at the house. 

As teenagers, we’d joke and laugh about it, but we didn’t understand how dangerous it was. Especially as these men would pounce whenever our carer would pop to the shops; they’d knock on the doors and try and get in. 

I started sofa surfing, which came with its own challenges (Picture: Inge Hunter)

By the time I turned 18 four months later, I already felt like an adult. This was cemented when I was kicked out of my hostel. 

I had one bag of stuff when I left. I had these grey jogging bottoms and a purple bomber jacket – I remember those specifically because a boss once said, ‘you wear the same thing all the time, Inge. They don’t look good on you, you should buy some new clothes.’ I remember thinking, ‘I can’t’. 

There was a pillow – I don’t like using other people’s pillows – a few other items of clothing, my phone charger and a diary with purple sequins on it. 

There was also my most useful belonging: a red plastic measuring jug. 

You can make everything in a measuring jug. You can use it to measure, obviously, but also for eating (it’s a bowl) or drinking; it’s something to cook in if you’ve got hot water. 

After that, I started sofa surfing, which came with its own challenges. All my friends were still living at home with their parents, and so I was confronted with a lot of well-meaning mums. 

These women were clearly trying to be kind, but it felt like they were doing it more for themselves than me. 

One of the ladies wanted me to come and sit for dinner with her family at the same time every evening. Many tried to implement their own structure onto my life. They didn’t realise that I’d been homeless for nearly a year and had already established a life like an adult. 

I had a job in a bar that I couldn’t change to suit their meal times. My education, making money, security and protecting myself were the most important things – polite conversation over lasagne was not. 

It meant I ended up with these broken relationships around me, without them being my fault, because no one understood the trauma I was going through. 

I ended up not staying places for very long; I would set a month-long maximum limit. And when I felt it was time to go, I’d say I had another place waiting. As much as I felt like a grown up, I wasn’t going to tell them the truth. 

I had one bag of stuff when I left the hostel (Picture: Inge Hunter)

Instead, I’d use my little money to buy the mums a bunch of flowers and leave. 

But my life changed at 19 after I rang up my friend CJ and asked if I could stay on his sofa for a week. I turned up at his house with my one bag and made a promise to his mum that I wouldn’t be in her hair for long. 

‘Yeah, you’re not leaving’, she replied. 

A lot of people had said that to me before, but she was quite lovingly strict with it. She proved herself different by just letting me get on with my life. She’d say things like, ‘there’s dinner in the kitchen if you want it’, without forcing me to sit with everyone else. 

She didn’t put any conditions on me staying and after feeling like I could trust her, I remember sleeping pretty solidly for three weeks. I was just so tired. 

Eventually, I started coming downstairs to eat with everyone else, and after that, CJ’s mum started slowly talking to me. It wasn’t forced. 

I ended up staying there for years. CJ’s dad even helped me sort out my university application. 

When I went to university, I remember thinking, ‘I guess this is it then – but what am I going to do for the summer holiday period’. 

Then lo and behold, the first day of the holidays, they turned up at my door to pick me up and bring me home. I was just so overwhelmed and grateful. 

My business grew over time and I ended up managing events (Picture: Inge Hunter)

Around that time, CJ and I had started dating and I immediately felt like part of the family. We had been best friends since we were 13, and looking back I was absolutely in love with him from that moment. 

At our wedding, I read an extract from that purple sequinned diary complaining, aged 14, about how he hadn’t text me back! 

I moved to a university closer to them and changed my course. I studied business management and marketing while working because I thought it would help with business, but it was a complete waste of time. I was still selling cocktails but this time at events with my own bar, and my business was thriving. 

It grew over time and I ended up managing the events. All the while, I was using CJ’s parents’ home as a base. I stored all my equipment in their garage and never heard a complaint.

When I fell pregnant between second and third year, I just carried on. CJ was training to be a pilot, but it was the recession, so there weren’t many jobs going. 

He used to come to university with me and sit in the car with the baby. I’d come out to breastfeed and then go back in to lectures. 

In the evening, I’d go and do bar events, and CJ’s mum would come and sit in the car with the baby while I’d go in to work. They’re really good people. 

I combined my love of working with my love of education, and did my university dissertation on the viability of a cocktail bar in the town where I lived. I was all set up to buy it, so I thought why not kill two birds with one stone. After lots of research for my dissertation, it turns out it wasn’t viable! I got a first and decided against my original plans. 

At the same time my business was going from strength to strength. I was doing bigger corporate events and even fell into wedding planning. I also fell pregnant again! 

I’ve now got three digital marketing businesses (Picture: Inge Hunter)

I organised a c-section because I knew I had another wedding booked soon after (and I had preeclampsia). I took my laptop to the hospital and even as I was about to give birth, I had a woman asking me about the difference between light blue and duck egg blue cushions. 

I’d grown my business really successfully using Instagram and in time, I had other business owners asking me for tips. That’s when I decided to pivot to being a consultant for others. I like to see it as holding a hand down to other people and pulling them up the mountain; I want to be the person I wanted. 

I’m in my 30s now, and I’m still very matter of fact about my story, because I don’t think I’ve been able to reflect on everything that’s happened to me. 

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But all this time, CJ’s family and home were my base. I lived with them until our baby was three, and we went back again when we needed to save for a house a couple of years later.

I’ve now got three digital marketing businesses, all helping people navigate how to promote their companies and brands in different ways. 

I’m successful in a job that I love, with a family that I love, and it’s something I never would have thought possible at 17.

Find out more about Inge and her work via her website: www.ingehunter.co.uk

As told to Jess Austin

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I think homelessness breeds entrepreneurism – I had no other choice but to come up with a solution.