'The night hotel refused me entry changed my life'

When homeless Calumn Donaghey was turned away from a Holiday Inn Express hotel even after a charity had booked him a room, he felt "disgusting".

The 30-year-old and a friend had been told the Manchester city centre hotel's policy did not allow homeless people to stay - a stance the company later apologised for.

Calumn, from Openshaw in Manchester, said at the time he did not know that crushing moment on a freezing cold January night would be life-changing.

But he has now been clean of drugs for several months and is living in a rehabilitation centre - and said he felt he "had got his life back" after nearly a decade on the streets.

Referring back to the night when his booking was refused, he told the BBC: "I thought, 'Am I actually that character, am I viewed that way now?'

"It just made me think I had to change."

Calumn's life began to spiral out of control in his early twenties when he began experimenting with drugs.

As his family relationships broke down and he found himself homeless, he "found crack cocaine" and what he saw as a "street family".

Years of addiction and mental health struggles followed, with many of his days spent trying to score drugs around Manchester's Piccadilly Gardens or trying to find a bed for the night.

Talking about his lowest moment on the streets, Calumn recalled one night a few weeks before he was turned away from the Holiday Inn on 6 January this year.

"I was lying on the floor and looked up at the stars and I actually laughed, but laughed in a sad way," he said.

"I was thinking 'Wow, I have adapted to this so much. I'm looking into the sky like this is my bedroom'."

He added: "Just the fact that I found it so normal, in a sad way, that it was okay to just put my head on the pillow and fall asleep."

After being refused entry into the Holiday Inn, a Travelodge in Moss Side agreed to take him in.

He then spent a few nights off the streets, and that ended up playing a crucial role in his recovery.

Asked how important a night off the streets can be to someone sleeping rough, he said: "It's the fact of the warmth, the fact of you have time to shower, get clean and sit on the bed for a minute and think.

"You can sit in your own mind inside there.

"When you're on the road, there's too much going on and just too much in your face. People give you money and stuff, so you're going to go to drugs. Just being in there for one night can change lives."

Calumn said the nights off the street in that Travelodge gave him the "kickstart" to decide try to get clean from drugs and off the streets.

"It's going to sound crazy but there was a mirror in front of me and that one night with that mirror, it was just like me, myself and I communicating, like 'Come on, you're worth more than this'."

For Amanda Thompson, co-founder of the Manchester homelessness charity Two Brews, which booked the hotel rooms for Calumn, his recent progress has been joyful to witness.

"It just makes you dead proud. It makes you happy. It kind of makes you realise you do what you do for a reason," she said.

"Some days you have your down days and you just think, 'Shall I carry on, shall I keep doing what I'm doing?'

"And then you just think, well, yeah, you see how it comes like this and you think, 'It's all worth it'."

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