Support Sessions for Vulnerable People

Aim: Raising money to cover the cost of the additional support sessions for vulnerable people to help them through the cost-of-living crisis.

About Sanctus

Sanctus is the only day centre serving the homeless and vulnerable in a significant part of Essex. We open 7 days a week, 365 days a year. Our basic service is to provide daily food and drinks to those in need as well as other essential items. In addition to this, we have a range of support services which are completed in our Support Hub, all offered for free. Our aim is to prevent homelessness and solve other vulnerabilities by supporting individuals to take positive steps forward.

Quite simply, if Sanctus could not open, not only would there be nowhere for homeless and vulnerable people to go, but there would be more people becoming homeless and the vulnerabilities of those who we support would worsen. 

Our work is directly focused on preventing and reducing the impact of poverty. As the cost-of-living crisis takes its toll across the country, we are witnessing the impact at an individual level. Since the start of the year, there has been a significant increase in demand on our services. Many of our newest service users are on low incomes and are struggling to manage bills and pay for food. To put this into perspective, in January 2022, we were supporting between 150 – 170 different individuals each month. Since June 2022, this number has increased to 300 – 360 different individuals accessing our services each month. 

Some days we have had 90 people come in to use our services. More and more people are visiting us, not just food the hot meals and the food bank, but also for our free support sessions.

What we need help with

We are raising money through the Aviva Community Fund to cover the cost of the additional support sessions for vulnerable people to help them through the cost-of-living crisis. Just £25 would cover 1 support session at Sanctus.

These sessions are specifically dedicated to supporting individuals who are homeless and vulnerable in other ways whose circumstances have worstened due to the cost-of-living crisis.

Our support sessions are intensive, person-centred and bring in other organisations to provide wrap around support with the aim of tackling any challenges they may be facing. Through our 1:1 intensive support sessions, we are able to build relationships and trust, with our focus being to enable them to access services, and take the next steps in receiving help. 

Our work follows a two-step approach. Initially, people visit our services to access our café provision. This is because it is a safe space, where everyone from all walks of life are welcome. As there is no criteria to come to Sanctus, no referral processes or long waiting times, those who are most marginalised in our community are likely to visit us. Even if this is initially for a cup of tea and a hot dinner, from this moment we work to engage these people, build relationships and offer a soft-touch triage service so that they can speak to someone in the Support Hub. Our Support Hub team also run drop-in sessions on the sofas in the Sanctus café, and we find individuals are more likely to wander over for a chat in this informal setting. This process can take some time, but once we have built up a relationship with these individuals, this is when the more intensive work begins. 

This project we are seeking funding for is the next step of this process. We are seeking funding for our support sessions which are needed more and more, week by week.

This project successfully funded on 27th December 2022