HOMELESS SUPPORT PROJECT
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Mission Statement
The prevention or relief of poverty in the Wigan and Leigh area, in particular but not exclusively, by the provision of support, food and shelter to people who are homeless or individuals in need.
About This Cause
HSP, Helping Support People, was formerly known as Homeless Support Project offering a meal service five days per week to those sleeping rough or sofa surfing. The Charity has changed to reflect the differing types of persons seeking support, food, and compassion. Our services, whilst predominantly for the homeless, encompass others in need also. We provide support to anyone in need. That includes the elderly and vulnerable, those with addictions and mental health issues. Our staff will listen to and help any individual in need of support, looking for ways in which to help. From provision of a basic hot meal service, the services we provide have increased naturally. To accommodate this, initially one meal per day was provided, increasing to provision of two meals per day in June 2017 to these who are rough sleepers, sofa suffers, addicts, suffering mental health problems or food poverty, and we have a client base of 549 people, who have used or are using our services. We are very much a volunteer led Charity, and have volunteers from all walks of life, including some with special needs, and we are a Disability Confident employer. We have built relationships with our service users and are able to provide support to those who want to address their issues. This support includes providing access to other services who can provide specialist help such as We Are with You for help beating addictions, Mental Health, and Complex Dependency Workers for those who struggle with mental health, Housing Solutions for help to find a bed for the night leading to longer term accommodation, Probations Services, Wound Care, Clinic in a box, for health services, and Spectrum for sexual health services. These services are now on site on a Monday and Wednesday, and leaflets are available to refer people into these services. If we do not have a link to a service that is needed, we will actively work to forge one. Our Charity supports the individual through the process of returning to independent, mainstream living by facilitating appointments, accompanying people when needed and then providing support after gaining accommodation. We provide help with budgeting and how to select an energy provider, we will provide bedding and some furniture when we have this available. Once clients have a place of their own, we encourage them to use our food service to maintain contact until they are in employment, and we are confident they will not feel the need to revert to old habits. As most other organisations deal with one aspect of the process of return to mainstream living, often the help stops once an individual has their own place. This can be the most crucial time for the individual and continued support is needed so we provide this. There is an issue with anti-social behaviour in the local community which is affecting local trade in the town centre as shoppers feel intimidated and unsafe. Whilst some of this is down to those below the age of 18, HSP recognises that some of the issues are caused by those who use our service as they have nowhere to go between the morning and evening meal services. To address this, we hold once weekly Bingo sessions and an Arts and Crafts session, encouraging clients to attend these and not congregate in the town centre. This is an aspect of our service that we are looking to expand with an aim of having an activity session every weekday afternoon. However, we need funds and volunteers to facilitate this. 26.4% of the people who use our services are of no fixed address. These present in an unclean state with dirty clothes and clearly unable to access facilities to shower and maintain any level of personal hygiene. From our experience this has a negative effect on both mental and physical health. As such, we have now had a shower unit installed with the help of a local company to help these people, and we encourage them to have a shower if they are street homeless. We have recently had an outbuilding built to accommodate a Foodbank at our Charles Street premises. We commenced a food parcel service during lockdowns and, as the need for this has not diminished following coming out of lockdown, we are maintaining this service. Having an outbuilding provides a degree of confidentiality for those who make use of the foodbank as they will not be required to come through the main building to access this service. This service is open to families as well as those who use the meal service on a referral basis, with one of the above services referring clients to us. However, we are aware of the issues in the Leigh area in respect of food poverty and are looking to open referrals to local schools. HSP also provides hot meals each day to ‘A Bed for the Night’ at the Old Court House in Leigh. We have chefs based on site to cook evening meals, seven days a week for the users of this service. This is in addition to the food service we provide to people in need in the Leigh area. We also give people additional food to eat outside of the venue such as sandwiches, pies, and pasties to ensure no one goes hungry when we are closed. To enable the charity to become more sustainable, we opened a charity shop in the centre of Leigh. From there we sell a wide range of furniture, clothes, bric a brac, and we are the only charity shop in the borough that sells food & drink, also with a 5-star hygiene rating off Wigan Council. This enables us to help the community with cheap prices and access to cheap food during the current cost of living crisis, whilst still bringing in an income for the charity. Regardless of what else we offer, the basic aim of the Charity remains the same, the provision of a hot meal to those who are homeless or destitute, providing a safe place to eat with reprimand or judgement. Any other help we can provide follows on from fulfilment of that one basic need. From February 2023 we have the following services onsite along with Wigan Council representatives, Monday (12-3pm): • DWP • Housing • Clinic in a Box • WAWY & Prescriber Wednesday (12-3pm): • Wound Care • Probation • Spectrum • Mental Health Service