Agenda item

Mags Mercer, Chief Operating Director, gave a presentation in respect of the work of the Hope Hub.

The Hope Hub was founded as an independent charitable incorporated organisation in December 2017, after the Churches Together Camberley group recognised there was need to respond to the findings of the Council’s consultation on homeless services. The consultation highlighted the need for greater, more centralised homeless service provision within Surrey Heath. Those who had suffered relationship breakdown, redundancy, domestic abuse, addictions, evictions, mental health problems, were identified to be at particular risk. In addition it was underlined 495 young ‘Care Leavers’, were deemed to be at risk across Surrey.  

The project focussed upon the assistance of homeless adults and those at risk of homelessness. The Hope Hub worked with various cooperating partners across Surrey Heath, whom collectively emphasised an urgent need for a new voluntary-sector organisation to provide homeless services provision.

The Hope Hub provided a pathway of services which guided clients from crisis management to long-term reintegration into society. The organisation’s services could be divided up into two strands:

·         Crisis Services – The project coordinated the provision of essential items to homeless people. Distributed items consisted of basic essentials such as food, toiletries and emergency items. Clients also received direct support to assist with accommodation, wellbeing, and any advocacy needs.

·         Empowerment Services – The Hope Hub worked on a one to one basis to invest in homeless individuals, and to rehabilitate and integrate them into society. Services to empower individuals included services such as: money management and debt advice, CV writing, training and volunteering workshops and IT resources and support. Clients were also equipped with frequent one to one meetings and support to enable constant reassessment of the steps to progress and the setting and evaluation of goals.

Since its opening, The Hope Hub had helped 43 clients and its services had been accessed a total of 414 times. The success of the Hope Hub since its opening was illustrated by various success stories such as the reconnection of families via the charity’s mediation services, the successful transition of clients into temporary accommodation and successful advocacy allowing clients to gain access to their pension funds.

Looking forward, the charity would need to raise an additional £36,000 to maintain and extend the organisation’s services for the rest of the year. The charity had planned the following expansion of their services for the near future:

·         Provide a new service with Accent Housing to host a series of ‘rent ready’ workshops to prepare clients for living independently.

·         Employ a Mental Health worker. It was noted that the vast majority of clients were not ready for existing, third sector mental health services such as the Amigo project.

·         The founding of social enterprise schemes which supported clients gaining new skills in areas such as gardening and catering; which involved quick, tangible achievements.

·         Helping 135 separate clients per year; including 35 with problems relating to debt.

Despite the fact many grants required applicant organisations to be running for over a year, the charity was continuing to work actively and agilely to apply for various local and national grants. In the near future, The Hope Hub would be featured in Tesco’s groundwork project scheme. In addition the organisation had already been a featured charity of the Waitrose ‘green token’ scheme, which raised a total of £412 for the charity.

Arising from the Committee’s questions and comments the following points were noted:

·         As the charity had only been founded less than a year ago, it was appreciated the organisation still had a lot of work to do to raise its profile in the community. The Hope Hub planned to attend various events including training sessions on raising charities’ profiles in the corporate sector. 

·         Even though it was appreciated that it was an accessible service, it was advised that The Hope Hub’s clients did not tend to use the All Night Café on the London Road, Camberley. Several night café clients had been referred to The Hope Hub and several vulnerable adults had been rehoused as a result. It was noted there was further scope for cooperation with the two organisations in the future.

·         900 children were in Surrey County Council care and were historically at far greater risk of unemployment, addiction and mental health problems, as well as homelessness.

·         The Hope Hub worked with Council officers to provide ‘homeless kits’ where appropriate. However it was noted due to storage problems the kits were allocated on an ad-hoc, individual basis.

·         Even though other organisations within the Borough, which provided homeless provision, had a large cliental, which were based outside the borough, the majority of the Hope Hub’s clients had genuine local connections within Surrey Heath.  

The Committee thanked Mags Mercer for her informative presentation and noted it would like to see the organisation present to the committee again in the near future.