About HOPE

HOPE began in April 2016, when our Founder Jo Laight, sat down on the pavement with some of the local homeless and discovered how few chances a week they had, to get a hot meal, fresh clean clothes and the opportunity to have some normal interaction, conversation and a little humanity (and hugs! They really missed physical contact and lots of them gave and received a lot of hugs with the HOPE Team)

Our aim is to support our homeless community. This includes the street dwellers, the roofless and the ‘hidden homeless’ – those who sleep in unused buildings, graveyards, their own workplace or even in their own cars; people who are in work, but simply have nowhere to call home.

We are there too for the poverty stricken and disadvantaged elements of our community, the isolated, the elderly, the lonely and those who need the comfort of friends and the support of their community.  We want to provide a wide range of support including help with addictions, mental and physical health, applying for benefits etc. and where we can be the start of a new journey for them, back into society where they are able to have their own place to call home, that isn’t a doorway or a patch of floor in a dark carpark or under a bridge. We want to be able to provide the support they need so that they no longer have to be homeless.  Although it will take us some time to achieve this and of course, we can’t change the world, but every small step that we take is a step closer to making this a reality.

These numbers are growing daily and we see more and more new faces every week.

Since April 2016 when we set HOPE up, we’ve achieved some incredible milestones, such as getting our charity status and opening our first charity shop. During the covid lockdown, we moved premises, to give us more space in the shop and stockrooms, whilst refurbishing the upstairs rooms to provide a Community Hub and a kitchen to service that Hub.  However, we have a lot more that we would like to achieve – our ultimate goal is to be no longer needed – a lot of organisations would be worried about that day coming, but we are looking forward to it because the day that we are no longer needed is the day that homelessness is no longer an issue and our disadvantaged communities are being cared for properly and effectively.