Our strategy and vision;

Anyone can become homeless.  It damages individuals, affects families and communities and we believe in most cases homelessness can be prevented.

We believe that with the right approach, funding, government support and community education, homelessness can end. We believe that prevention is the answer, sustainable housing stock, social property investment and a housing first approach will break homelessness.

We exist to support all those affected by or worried about homelessness, modern slavery, care support, family crisis and mental health in hull and the surrounding area. Our vision is to create and stronger Britain free from homelessness, where homelessness can be prevented, and there are compassionate communities who are fully informed and understand all types of homelessness.

Homelessness is not what you might think, we not only work with people rough sleeping on the streets, our support extends to all those affected or at risk of homelessness such as;

•  Care leavers

•  Sofa surfers

•  Trafficked people

•  Families

•  Children

•  Vulnerable women

•  Prison leavers

•  Veterans

•  The elderly

Our criteria for help here at HHCP are those affected by, at risk of, or currently homeless.  We are very different in our approach to rough sleepers, as we do not just check on rough sleepers to ensure they are safe, but we provide advocacy and companionship. This includes arranging appointments, advocating for their needs, ensuring they meet appointments and also taking them if needed. We arrange social activities and provide volunteering opportunities for those making positive next steps.

A few examples of service we provide;

Vulnerable women: We provide a weekly drop in service for women who are vulnerable and at risk of homelessness, re-offending or recently out of prison. We do this in partnership with the Together Women Project (TWP) and Humberside Probation Service. This service ranges from finding accommodation; providing practical move on support such as furniture, white goods; grant finding; probation support; helping with benefits or rent arrears; food parcels; or simply a none judgmental ear.

Families and Children: We work with social services, family shelters, leaving care team, the looked after care team and the courts to name a few. We provide expert accommodation support where other services do not have the knowledge or resources to do so. We help support families into independent living after being in supported living.  The local authority do not provide any assistance with move-on needs such as furniture or white goods and essentials.  Therefore, we gather donations from the public to furnish our client’s houses for free.  This builds on our commitment to community engagement and social action, helping everyone have a say in how our community is ran and managed.

We do not expect a family to wait weeks and weeks before they can wash, cook or clean etc. We also provide this service for single adults and care leavers as they are faced with the same problems.

The reason we do this is to minimize the risk of them returning to homelessness.  Moving into a bare empty flat on your own and having the responsibility of your own care is very hard for a lot of people that have been ‘looked after’ and the shock can bring back poor mental health, self-doubt, anxiety and substance abuse and thus it’s not long before the work to build independence is undone.

If a person loses a successful tenancy and ends up back in care or street homeless it is much harder to get someone back to that point again (known as the revolving door of homelessness). We exist to stop this repeated cycle many people face from inappropriate support or not fitting the criteria for traditional support.

How we record outcomes;

Outcomes are recorded by using the outcome star (http://www.outcomesstar.org.uk/about-the-star/) for each customer at the start of their journey.  Together, we set clear and measurable goals based on what we want to achieve as a partnership between us and our customer. These goals are divided into statutory goals and self-set goals. As their journey progresses with us, we work with our partner agencies who have referred to us to determine if our support is valuable.  In evaluation, we focus;

•        Emotional wellbeing

•        Social wellbeing

•        Health and wellbeing

•        Financial stability

•        Sustenance

•        Self-sustainability

•        Social Confidence

•        Independence in living

•        Time keeping

•        Attendance

•        Understanding and awareness

The ability of our beneficiaries to self-assess their progresses is key to keeping invested in their journey, we work together to evaluate, asses and record our finding and set additional goals moving forward.

 

FOR MORE INFORMATION

WEBSITE         Hullhomeless.co.uk

EMAIL              [email protected]

TWITTER         @hull_homeless

FACEBOOK     The Hull Homeless Community Project