Home from Home — the C4WS project we’ve put funding towards
Euston Town BID are pleased to announce that we have allocated funding towards ‘Home From Home’; a hosting project managed by homeless charity C4WS and monitored by Camden Giving, where people with spare rooms offer these to guests of C4WS.
With homelessness rising at an unprecedented rate, the C4WS Homeless Project is responding to this important need. This entails holistically working with individuals to support them around mental and physical health problems, addiction issues, immigration matters, welfare advice and housing advice. 14 years on from their small beginnings, they now run various projects including the Home from Home project.
Natasha Friend, Director of Camden Giving, said:
“Referrals at C4WS have increased by 600% over the last year, and their biggest growth groups within that are Camden residents and LGBT+ which I find mind blowing in Camden — a really liberal place. There is a bit of a myth that rough sleeping in Camden isn’t a Camden problem. A really high percentage of homeless people going through C4WS are Camden residents and at Camden Giving we certainly take the view that if you are sleeping rough in Camden, then you are part of this community and we will look after you as part of that.”
The Home from Home project provides short-term respite for homeless people whilst C4WS’ Welfare Team source suitable move-on accommodation for them. This might be someone who has secured a job and needs to save for a deposit to move into the private rented sector, an asylum seeker who needs temporary housing whilst their case is being heard or someone who has secured a new home but needs interim accommodation until their move-in date.
Hosting is a fun and inclusive way of giving vital support to someone in need that makes a real and tangible difference to their lives. It involves offering a spare room in your home for a fixed short term period to a guest from C4WS’ winter night shelter whilst the staff work on securing them a home. This might be to someone who has started work and needs a stable base to focus on their new job, a refugee or asylum seeker adapting to life in the UK or someone who just needs a couple of weeks extra accommodation until their new home is ready for them to move into. C4WS are on hand throughout and provide a subsistence grant for hosts to cover expenses. It can be a very fun getting to know someone new, experiencing different cultures and playing an important role in enabling someone to get back on their feet.
Last year, C4WS’s Home from Home project, provided 251 nights of hosting which equated to an extra 12% capacity of housing. This was a huge increase in their ability to be able to help those in need. Given that they receive 5 times as many calls for our service as we have spaces in the shelter to provide, hosting offered a tangible solution that enabled them to be able to assist more people than ever before.
Sam Forsdike, Welfare Manager at C4WS, said:
“The funding from Camden Giving and Euston Town BID will enable us for the first time to hire a dedicated coordinator to manage Home from Home. This includes matching new hosts and guests, supporting them through the period of hosting and recruiting new hosts to join the programme so that we have even more capacity.”
Natasha Friend, Director of Camden Giving, said:
“What’s great about working with Euston Town BID on this grant, is that often businesses say they want to do something about rough sleeping because it’s so in your face, it’s a problem that you see more than you might see other societal problems, so people do very emotive things, which is great as well. But what’s good about supporting this project is that it’s looking at the structural problem and how it can be addressed. C4WS don’t have enough beds for people that are ready to move away from rough sleeping, so they send them up to Barnet where they don’t have connections and they end up bouncing back to rough sleeping. By giving them a bed and a friendship in Camden, you are making that far less likely and I massively admire Euston BID for looking at that problem and trying to resolve it.”
Sam Forsdike said:
“This has been an incredibly successful project that has demonstrated the best of human kindness. We have been bowled over by the support and generosity of our hosts in offering spaces to our guests and it has been heartwarming to hear our guests report how they have been made to feel part of a household and a home as well as having a roof over their heads. From guests cooking Persian feasts handed down through their families to hosts introducing their guests to study groups and gardening projects, the exchange of ideas has been a wonderful by-product of the relationships that have been formed through Home From Home.”
Ben, a C4WS guest, said:
“It was my best day ever in London. Thank you and thank you for presenting me to my hosts. They are awesome. What we did made me completely happy. Thanks a lot.”
Volunteer hosts of Home From Home are supported throughout the process by the C4WS Welfare Team and if you’re interested in volunteering to become a host or if you require any further information about what hosting might involve then please don’t hesitate to contact C4WS on: admin@c4wshomelessproject.org
Follow C4WS:
Twitter: @C4WSCamden
Instagram: @c4wshomelessproject
Follow Camden Giving:
Twitter: @camden_giving
Instagram: @camdengiving
