“Not on my own”- Improving wellbeing and enabling people experiencing homelessness to reach their full potential and thrive through personalised support.

The one thing the team want you to know

Homelessness is a marginalising and lonely experience linked to occupational deprivation and mental and physical health inequality. People affected by homelessness are already impacted by poverty of resources, opportunities and relationships. So, the current cost-of-living crisis has disproportionately harsh impacts on them, stifling any ambition and creating even greater distance from a positive, purposeful future. It can be impossible to escape from a cycle of deprivation involving debt, ill health, and lack of resources to take up training or employment opportunities, or establish a home. This project seeks to break that cycle through personalised support to help people move forward.

Project description

The project targets people affected by homelessness, be it an imminent risk, or a current or past experience. This includes people who are currently street homeless, or in transition from rough sleeping into accommodation, from addiction to recovery, or from hospital admission and treatment to discharge. It will provide personalised support to tackle known economic and practical obstacles confronting people when trying to change their life circumstances.
The health challenges for this group are well documented and include frailty, heavy use of emergency services, and reduced life-expectancy (rough sleepers die on average 30 years earlier than the general population). In hospital, they can feel isolated and frightened, and are at high risk of self-discharge. Support for dignity in care, reduced occupational deprivation, and improved engagement can make all the difference between a successful hospital stay and damaging interruption to treatment.
We are a grassroots voluntary organisation in daily contact with our client group. Food brings them to us, but we always seek to understand their wider needs. Our strengths include being a bridge between clients and commissioned services, and the flexibility that being volunteer-led allows us to act nimbly to fill gaps in innovative ways.
We are able to launch project activities promptly, drawing on experience gained through many years of delivering the Soup Run service, plus user feedback, surveys, and participatory research. Our strong experienced partners (Plymouth Access to Housing (Path), Shekinah, and Health Inclusion Pathway, Plymouth (HIPP)) bring specialised skills in supporting people with complex needs. Among many collaborative activities, we successfully piloted the ‘New Beginnings’ scheme with Path helping people in a personalised way to address obstacles to their progress.
We have defined five Objectives to:
1: Prevent homelessness and reduce the risk of accommodated clients returning to rough sleeping, through advocacy, debt relief, and budgeting skills development.
2: Facilitate timely intervention to avert health crises and promote take-up of opportunities, through material and logistical support to attend appointments and treatment.
3: Support hospitalised clients by meeting basic needs through provision of clothing, and enabling connectedness and recreation with reading material, and i-pads/tablets.
4: Reduce isolation and promote personal development for people transitioning from homelessness, through supporting home-making and engagement with wellbeing/recovery programmes, plus new experiences to make their world bigger.
5: Foster interagency working and strengthen relationships between communities and organisations through creative approaches to supporting clients in common whose needs fall outside existing highly-pressured budgets.

Funding needed £7800

What group or groups of people will the project be working with and why?

We are targeting people in the poorest parts of Plymouth, who are currently homeless, affected by past homelessness or at risk of becoming homeless. They suffer multiple disadvantage including severe poverty, and are disproportionately impacted by rises in the cost-of-living. We want to offer them personalised support to progress to healthier and more purposeful lives.

What areas will the project be working in?1 neighbourhood

PL1- predominantly Stonehouse, with clients coming to us from other poor areas of the city.

What is the group or organisations track record? Track record:
Been delivering for many years

How new is the idea? Experimentation:
Been delivering for years


Budget

Salaries & peoples time 0%

Project costs 100%

Event/hire/rent 0%

IT spend 0%

Core costs 0%

Capital 0%

Organisations involved

Plymouth Soup Run, Plymouth Access to Housing (Path), Shekinah, and Health Inclusion Pathway, Plymouth (HIPP)

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