Preventing Homelessness for Veterans

There has been much talk in the UK over the winter months about street homeless veterans with a government grant of £8.5m donated to ensure that 'no veteran is a rough sleeper'.  Sadly, that money has yet to hit the grass roots organisations where homelessness support is really delivered and understood.

I have said this up front, because it is important that those who care about veterans and those we support, know that we are not requesting funds needlessly.  We have received absolutely none of the £8.5m grant yet we are seeing a constant increase in veterans seeking our support.  And the knock on effect of Covid-19 has meant that the traditional avenues of fund raising for small grass roots charities like ourselves are increasingly drying up.

The veterans that come to us are sometimes street homeless. More often (and thankfully) they reach out to us as they are about to become homeless; this may be because they are in debt, have broken up with their partners, friends and family have finally become fed up with their sofa surfer lodgers or they are so disabled that they cannot keep up with the changes in the benefit system and have fallen behind with the rent and are about to be thrown out by the landlords.  The reasons are many and varied.  But they all come to the same thing - each individual is scared, desperate and beside themselves with worry.

Your funding buys us time; we can lodge veterans (and frequently do) in local B&Bs where they can stay in a warm bedroom, have a shower and breakfast and once we have 'bought' that time and stabilised things slightly, we can then support them into appropriate accommodation.  I wish it was as easy as that sentance was to write.  It isn't.  It takes time, patience, endless phone calls, meetings, and trust - but it can be done, and we are very good at it.

But with the increasing cost of living; ratcheting anxiety and stress which combined with the constantly negative social media feeding into more anxiety and stress, this work is challenging to say the least.  

BUT your funding of our support work can make a very real difference, whereever we are in the UK.  Please help us do more of the same; finding homes for veterans and their families helps reduce suicide, addictions, abuse and all of the add ons that come with being made homeless.  

Please help us get more veterans into accommodation - permanently - and enable us to create a meangingful grassroots network of collaboration and support, so that we can prevent this happening.

Thank you.