Off the Street Project
‘We think sometimes that poverty is only being hungry, naked, and homeless. The poverty of being unwanted, unloved, and uncared for is the greatest poverty”
– Mother Teresa
2024
In 2024 our aim is to launch our Off the Street Project, employing two experienced part-time co-ordinators and a team of trained volunteers to work with people on the street to move them towards permanent accommodation and employment on a person centred and step-by-step basis. The key is not just to help people off the streets but the advice and support to help them stay off the streets, especially in their first 12 -18 months in work or new accommodation.
By launching this project, we can help people immediately and also help move people forward in their lives by providing personal support, training, benefit advice, forging relationships with social landlords and working collaboratively with local councils and community agencies to develop creative low-cost solutions.
It’s not easy to find accommodation if you have no deposit for a flat, maybe a criminal record and you don’t have decent clothes to meet a potential landlord in. Falling into the hole is easy but you need to help to get out and not fall back in.
Help us to rebuild lives.
The Project will cost around £50,000 per year and will run 5 days per week, primarily in Central London. The effect on individual lives will be enormous. As a cost comparison, if we move just 20 people per year into employment, that will save the entire cost of the project to the public purse and bring in additional tax revenue to the government. We aim to do much more than that!
Prevention better than cure
Part of the Off the Street Project will also be about preventing people in temporary or highly unsuitable/dangerous accommodation from dropping into homelessness or rough sleeping. 139,000 children in the UK are in temporary accommodation. Impact on children and their families includes mental health issues, sickness, loneliness and malnutrition.
We are especially looking for businesses to sponsor this project as a social investment. We will also apply for grant making trust and local authority funding.
Rough Sleeper Story
When you begin to realise that you’re living on the streets, your main priority is looking for a place and somewhere to sleep during the night. I sleep in a bin, often a charity clothing collection one, as they are warm, comfy and waterproof.
I wake up in the morning between the hours of 7 and 8. You don’t want people to know where you are because it becomes easier for them to rob you or abuse you and parks are no good because people can do whatever they want.
More than anything else, it’s the aftercare. It’s fine for [charities] to help you to get off the streets and into a bedsit – That’s brilliant and I acknowledge that but it’s so easy for any homeless person to be back on the streets. The hardest bit isn’t coming off the streets – it’s staying off the streets and finding a job.”
Want to support this project?
Help us to move more people forward by providing personal support, training, benefit advice, forging relationships with social landlords and working collaboratively with local councils and community agencies to develop creative low-cost solutions.