Members of the Brighton & Hove community are volunteering to help end homelessness on the city streets. Action will be taking place from Sunday 13th– Tuesday 15th October 2020.
The initiative is run by a local organisation called Galvanize Brighton & Hove. The community led campaign has been running since 2017. It forms part of a wider European campaign called Connections Week which is coordinated by World Habit. To date, over a thousand homeless people have been surveyed across 10 European cities from Valencia to London. Historically around 160 volunteers have taken part in Brighton & Hove.
The objective of the campaign is to benchmark against previous surveys and give those sleeping rough a voice which is fed into a system for change. They will be asked how they came to be in the situation as well as the help they are receiving and their hopes and aspirations for the future. The data gathered will be used to help build a strategy to solve the crisis with sustainable and long-term solutions.
Kerry Holgate, Chair of Galvanise Brighton & Hove, explained: “Connections Week seeks to engage volunteers from across the community. From those that work in the homelessness sector to those that want to do more when walking past someone living on the streets. It gives us an opportunity to talk to our street homeless neighbours about their hopes, fears and aspirations and ensure their voices feed into service redesign and long-term housing solutions. Everyone has the right to a safe and stable home”.
According to city council statistics, in 2018 there was a reduction in homeless people sleeping on the streets of Brighton & Hove. 64 people were counted sleeping rough compared with 178 the previous year. However, these statistics have been widely disputed due to a change in the method of counting.
Jim Deans, who runs charity Sussex Homeless Support (SHS), said: “It was snowing, and they tried to open an emergency shelter at 2am. It turned into a shamble. Many of the rough sleepers had run for cover much earlier in the day. We know someone in a hostel, and he had four others in his room that night, so the count was completely wrong”.
Those who volunteer will be asked to work morning and night shifts from 5am- 8.30am and 9pm to 2am. If you would like to get involved and help make a difference to those living on the streets of Brighton & Hove then follow this link: https://www.galvanisebh.org/get-involved
