May 19, 2019

The Game

How a Facebook group is using the Wetherspoons app to feed homeless people.

One night in Salisbury, £260 of food and (non-alcoholic) drinks were bought by strangers from all over the UK and internationally.

Wetherspoons has an app that allows customers to skip queuing at the bar to order food and drink. It also means you can play pranks, sending orders of peas or Fruit Shoots to any table of your choice at one of around 900 ’Spoons across the UK.

Chris Illman from Fareham formulated Wetherspoons The Game! and founded a page for it on Facebook. The idea is simple: people post a picture of themselves and their table number and wait for fellow group members to send them stuff – anything at all. Last week’s players included Tiffany turning 21 at The Swan in Weymouth, a hen party at The Panniers in Barnstaple and someone celebrating the loss of their virginity, allegedly, at The Manor House in Royston.

But among the rowdy revellers was a post from The Standing Ordr in Southampton which asked people to donate food that would be distributed to people rough sleeping nearby.

May 1, 2019

The Right to Shower

This new brand from Unilever is donating 100% of its profits in 2019 to bring mobile shower units to homeless communities.

Drugstore aisles are filled with an abundance of bath and body products. You can choose what body wash you’d like based on price, scents, ingredients, brand loyalty, or just pretty packaging. Many of us take the fact that we can make these choices — and the fact that we can shower at all — for granted.

The fact is, for the 550,000 homeless individuals in the United States, cleanliness and personal hygiene aren’t guarantees. The Right to Shower, a brand recently launched by Unilever, is bringing attention to this issue by launching a line of basic bath products, and donating 100 percent of its profits in 2019 to mobile shower initiatives.

April 9, 2019

Radio station for the homeless

UK charity launches first ever radio station for the homeless.

The radio station will train 40 young homeless people to digitally broadcast their stories, operate a radio desk and present, record and edit digital podcasts.

A youth homelessness charity has secured funding to launch the UK’s first ‘Radio Station for the Homeless’.

The charity Accumulate received the startup funding from Nesta as a part of its Amplified programme designed to encourage creative digital ideas that generate positive social outcomes.

The project is the brainchild of Marice Cumber, founder of Accumulate, who wanted homeless people to be more involved in programming about homelessness.

March 22, 2019

Pret House scheme

Pret A Manger is offering homeless people a roof and a job.

The sandwich chain is aiming to help 20 people off the streets by the end of the year with the launch of their new Pret House scheme.

Many a sandwich and a cup of tea has been bought from one of their stores to give to rough sleepers but now Pret A Manger is offering more to Britain’s homeless – a home and a job.

The sandwich shop chain has teamed up with homelessness charity West London Mission St Luke’s (WLM) to set up The Pret House offering a spot on their Rising Stars programme as well as accommodation.

Pret’s Rising Stars programme, run by The Pret Foundation for a decade, gives 40 jobs at the firm to ex-homeless people every year – a crucial step in providing the stability to break the cycle of homelessness for good.

March 12, 2019

Get Digital

Get Digital Scotland will “open digital doors” for homeless people.

The new digital inclusion campaign launches creating 250 ‘digital champions’ to ensure vulnerable people aren’t left behind in digital age.

A new digital inclusion initiative has recently launched in Scotland to give homeless people the computer skills “other take for granted”.

Two of Scotland’s leading homelessness charities Streetwork and Simon Community Scotland unveiled Get Digital after receiving a £250,000 grant from the Scottish government to create ‘digital champions’.

This will see 250 workers from the two charities receive training to provide support to people experiencing homelessness in learning digital skills and engaging with the digital world.

February 17, 2019

Take One Leave One

This community ‘take one leave one’ initiative is fighting the cold snap.

The founder hopes his clothes rail move will spark others to set up their own initiative.

As temperatures drop across the country a new community-led initiative has launched in a bid to help rough sleepers keep warm during the cold snap.

#TakeOneLeaveOne launched in January 29 at London’s Exmouth Market, offering coats, scarves, gloves and blankets to anyone who needs them.

Rails and baskets can be found outside the Holy Redeemer church and ‘pledge cards’ for services at local businesses are available offering laundry services, food and hot drinks and haircuts.

January 31, 2019

Beam

Beam is harnessing local communities to help homeless people back to work.

It’s tech for good, it’s a team effort and it’s opening doors for some of the UK’s most disadvantaged people.

London entrepreneur Alex Stephany thinks tech is key to getting people into work and eradicating poverty. His model, Beam, uses an online platform to rally a homeless person’s community closer around them until they have the skills to support themselves.

Beam is a crowdfunding platform developed by Stephany, whose passion for the so-called sharing economy led him to write a book on the concept and even advise the city of Seoul on it. The project opens up opportunities for homeless people, who might otherwise be shut out of work, by fundraising for them to attend training which will help them get into employment. Beam members tell their own stories in their own words and their progress can be tracked online while they crowdfund themselves back into work.

January 20, 2019

Big Data

How Big Data can prevent homelessness.

Councils already know all about us – but now it seems these data goldmines can be used to predict who might fall into hardship.

“The idea is to collect the data in the council database that could raise the red flag around an individual.”

Professor Vania Sena believes the swathes of data that councils already hold on us could be used to prevent homelessness.

The University of Essex researcher is working with Suffolk and Essex County Councils to analyse large sets of citizen data, collectively known as Big Data, using algorithms that will be used to predict when people need help.

If data analysis and predictive algorithms sounds cutting-edge, Sena says the actual models being used are very basic. “We’re not talking here about sophisticated artificial intelligence,” she says.

January 10, 2019

ShowerBox

London’s ShowerBox will provide ‘eco-showers’ for homeless people.

Project founder Sarah Lamptey is on the hunt for a suitable space to station the solar-powered free showers.

The founder of London’s first free showers for homeless people is set to create a solar-powered facility to serve as a community space.

The ShowerBox initiative, set up by radio presenter Sarah Lamptey, provides safe shower facilities for the homeless. She recently received a large donation of solar-powered showers from tech company Navitron and is looking for a space or organisation which shares the ShowerBox values to collaborate with her on “providing eco-showers and company to those who need them, just as public baths used to in this country”.

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Tag: homelessness