Where’s the help for our vet heroes? TINA’S HOMELESS TORMENT
Which lanky TV host has a House Of Games, a celebrity teatime quiz?
Which Championship team play their home games at Ewood Park in Lancashire?
Whose album Whatever People Say I Am, That’s What I’m Not won a BRIT Award in 2007?
What links a name for a palace in Seville with Richard Gere?
DAVID CROSBIE, Harborne Alcazar. The Swedish nu-disco group did a song named after the actor.
QAQUESTION 1 A ROYAL Navy veteran who ended up homeless after falling on hard times is calling for military personnel to receive more support.
Tina Fairbrass, who spent seven years in the Navy, found herself in her late 30s heavily in debt, homeless and with a young child.
She was destitute before the military charity Stoll – which supports vulnerable veterans – got her back on her feet.
Now Tina, 50, is calling on military veterans who hit rock bottom to get the help they need before it’s too late.
She said: “A lot of veterans do not know how to access the social housing system or the benefits system when they find themselves going through hard times.
“It is really difficult to understand so something needs to be done about it.
“If they are struggling after doing five tours of Afghanistan to then be told, ‘We can’t help you’ that is wrong.
“They’ll think, ‘Well why can’t you help me? I have served my country.’ There is often a pride thing because a lot of people in the armed forces do not know how to ask for help.
“Local council staff should be trained to ask the right questions.”
Tina, of London, left the Navy in the mid-90s when she got married.
She later divorced and was in an abusive relationship before discovering she was pregnant at the age of 36.
Tina revealed the abuse started as psychological before turning financial and finally physical.
After remortgaging her house three times to pay her partner’s debts, she fled to a women’s shelter with her threeyear-old daughter after realising how bad things were.
Had she known her rights as a veteran, she would have found support sooner and never have been homeless, she said.
But none of this was ever asked and she was simply given a list of landlords who take people on benefits. It was a chance encounter
There is often a pride thing
with Stoll in 2011 that saved her. The charity, named after founder Sir Oswald Stoll, offered her a two-bed flat that day, where she still lives, and helped her fund a master’s degree. Tina is now planning to return to work and credits the charity with helping her turn her life around.
She said: “They are really good because they offer more than housing support. They put you in touch with the right people.
“A lot of veterans have mental health issues like PTSD or drug and alcohol problems, and Stoll help them rebuild their lives.”
● For more information you can visit www. stoll.org.uk