Former homeless couple urge businesses to help turn addicts’ lives around

A COUPLE who were left homeless as they struggled with addictions to drugs and alcohol have told how a charity helped them to turn their lives around.

Emma Brier and Chris Sylvester from Leeds are now urging businesses to follow in the footsteps of their employers and take on people recovering from substance abuse.

The couple spent time sofa surfing and staying in a raft of emergency accommodation after an increasing dependency on drugs and alcohol left them unable to hold down a job and without a permanent home.

They both completed detox and rehabilitation programmes, and Ms Brier was helped to find work as procurement administrator at Killingbeck-based Howard Civil Engineering by The Howarth Foundation’s ‘Business Building Futures – Street to Feet’ programme. It helps match people that have lived chaotic lifestyles and experienced homelessness and addiction with training opportunities and jobs to help them get back on their feet.

Ms Brier, 40, said: “For most people in recovery from addiction and homelessness, getting a job is the final piece of the puzzle.

“The job I have now is meaningful and gives me great job satisfaction which has really helped my physical and mental health and my recovery.”

Ms Brier’s partner, Chris Sylvester, 38, began using heroin at the age of 12 and was registered with an addiction unit by the time he was a teenager. He spent time in prison and then living on the streets of Leeds after his release.

He now works as a client coordinator at The Howarth Foundation, which is based in Cleckheaton, helping others that have overcome homelessness and addiction to get back in to work. Mr Sylvester said: “The only education I had when I left school was how to take drugs, but now I’m back in work and helping other people to overcome their own problems and fears, which has given me back a real sense of purpose.”