Why did Sharron Maasz, a much-loved outreach worker, end up dying homeless herself?

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Sharron Maasz 1974-2010: She spent years supporting rough sleepers in affluent Oxford – but somehow the mother of three spent 10 years on the street, and died in supported accommodation

‘I was a single mum, working in a full-time job, helping people who’ve got issues, and it all got too much for me,” Sharron Maasz told a film-maker in 2012. Maasz’s ambition was to write a book about her life. The message behind it would be simple: homelessness can happen to anybody. Nobody knew that better than Maasz. Before she ended up sleeping rough for 10 years, she was an outreach worker supporting homeless people in Oxford.

Few homeless people get the chance to tell their story. Maasz was the subject of two short films, and in August 2018 she told the Guardian she had just started dictating her life story into a recorder she had been given. She was going to put everything into it: the domestic abuse that led to her losing her children, home and job; life on the streets; dual addiction to alcohol and drugs. She hoped that the story would have a feelgood ending – recovery, a new home, the published book. But, on 22 January, Sharron Maasz died in supported accommodation in Oxford aged 44.

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from The Guardian https://ift.tt/2QR0CKw

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