The Spires Centre - Winter Appeal

Aim

Homelessness is on the rise due to the cost of living. We're raising money to help deal with the high demand for our services this Winter.

About Spires 

Spires is a lifeline for homeless and disadvantaged people in South London. Our mission is to support homeless people into housing before ensuring they have the tools they need to maintain their accommodation.

We are seeing an increased demand for our services with homelessness on the rise and at the same time we are seeing a drop in our usual funding sources. Donations play a huge part in ensuring we can continue to offer high quality support to all who need it.

How we work: 

Our skilled team of key workers create individual support plans with each client to address underlying support needs whilst facilitating access to our network of landlords and housing pathways.

Every client we support has a different journey, but typically there are three stages of support, which are:

• Assess
• Support 
• Maintain

Assess

We first meet the majority of people supported by the Housing and Homeless Team during our rough sleeper breakfasts, which run four days a week. While there, people are offered food, clothes and other basic necessities before being assessed.

In most cases, people who come to Spires are assessed on the same day and immediate support actions taken. 

Support

Key workers access each individual’s housing requirements and address their underlying support needs. One of the ways they do this is by working with local authorities and/or Spire’s own network of landlords to ensure clients move into suitable housing.

The causes of homelessness are complex, and we know that without the right support, the chances of a person keeping their accommodation are reduced. Every support plan is different, but the team consistently support people to:

• Access mental health services and adopt wellbeing strategies 
• Work with drug and alcohol services and establish healthier coping strategies 
• Obtain training or qualifications
• Develop IT skills and the ability to manage welfare benefits independently 
• Maintain personal safety
• Establish a support network 

Maintain

The people we work with always know they can come back to Spires for support. By having little to no barriers to accessing our services, we are able to intervene early and prevent tenancies breaking down. As well as people who are supported into housing by Spires, we support vulnerable people who are at risk of losing their housing. This tenancy maintenance support is becoming an increasingly important part of our support offer, especially as more people struggle and face increasing pressures in the current social climate.

Why you should support our cause

Due to the current cost of living and as we approach Winter, we are dealing with high demand for our services with homelessness on the rise across London. Recent figures show that between April and September this year, 5,712 people were sleeping rough in London, a 21% increase compared to last year. With the help of more donations, we can deal with the high demand for our services this Winter and help secure more clients out of homelessness and into safe accommodation.

What the Spires Centre means to our local community

Spires creates a welcoming and safe environment for all and we pride ourselves on being the first point of call for many people in need of support. We work in partnership with community groups, schools and business groups and our team members regularly talk at community events.

Through supporting people to exit homelessness we see ourselves as a community resource. Our work both supports individuals in their time of need and reduces the number of people sleeping out in the community.

This project successfully funded on 28th February 2023