We are seeing a large increase in the number of young people needing our support.
Here we share some of the stories from the young adults, aged 21, 23 and 25, explaining how they came to need our services and support.
"We moved from Stoke on Trent. My partner was a victim of domestic violence and I am a care leaver.
"Together we left and tried to find a fresh start. We have travelled all over the country looking for a new start - our favourite place was Snowdon.
"We were eventually given temporary accommodation when we moved to Shrewsbury. We had to share with 11 people who were aggressive and addicted to drugs so we had to leave. This meant we had put ourselves on the streets and there was no duty of care to give us a home.
"When I left care at 18 I was moved into shared accommodation where I was sexually abused by someone else living in the accommodation. At this point I started drinking and was soon drinking a bottle of vodka in a day.
"We would like to get our lives on track but we feel very alone."
This story is from a young man originally from the local area.
"My family are from here but we moved a lot due to family difficulties. My upbringing was very unsettled. I left home and moved to a hostel when my Nan passed away, she had been a mother figure to me.
"In the hostel I was attacked by another resident who was an adult. He punched me and burst my intestines which has left me permanently disabled with a stoma. I was offered a flat after this, but I didn't really have the understanding of how to pay bills and manage a house, I had £250 a month and couldn't make it stretch to cover bills.
"I started drinking to escape the chaos in my life and my head and now live in a caravan. Thank god for kind people, I would like to thank Rhea Valley Foods who always help me."
As well as meeting basic life-needs and helping people navigate the complex housing system to help them find a home, our amazing support workers teach essential life skills, such as budgeting and cooking nutritious food on a budget.
In addition, our support workers encourage people to engage with our partners delivering professional health and mental health services in-house.
For whatever reason, people experiencing homelessness or other vulnerable people are intimidated or do not feel comfortable accessing health and care services through usual routes. The result is health deteriorates, and they only present to healthcare services when they are at crisis point.
By having the healthcare services in-house conditions such as cancer, trench foot, and mental health issues are identified and treated appropriately to prevent further deterioration; in the long run, we estimate this is saving the NHS an average of £12k per client.
Please donate to help us help others.
We are currently supporting 30 people and our staff and volunteers are at capacity.
We are the first port of call for people in crisis, and there are an increasingly more of people coming to us every day looking for support; many are sofa surfing or at risk of becoming homeless in the next few weeks.
We NEVER charge for our day centre services and while the government announced in the budget it had allocated £10million to go towards preventing homelessness, this is going directly to local authorities.
As a charity, we provide employment to 11 people and like many other charities and small businesses in our town, we have additional financial pressures on our services to meet the other announcements made in the budget:
Increasing the employer National Insurance contributions rate of employer National Insurance contributions (NICs) from 13.8% to 15%
Dropping the employer NIC threshold from £9,100 to £5,000
Increasing the National Living Wage by 6.7% to £12.21p/h
(All our dedicated and experienced staff, who constantly go above and beyond expectations, are paid more than the National Living Wage.)
We funded entirely by grants and donations.
Are you able to donate to our Trustee Campaign?
Details here.
Here's how your donations will help:
£5 daily hot meals and drinks for one person
£15 contributes to electricity for a washing machine, giving dignity to someone experiencing rough sleeping
£20 runs a tumble drier for wet clothes and sleeping bags
£30 contributes towards our monthly milk bill (around £200) for hot drinks and food
£100 pounds pays for a medical practitioner for 1 hour
£500 pays our monthly electric bill
£10,000 would fix a leak in our roof
£22,000 pays our salary bill for one month (and the recent National Insurance contributions announced in the budget means we have to find at least another £5,000 per annum.)
Huge thank you as always to everyone who generously supports us.
Everything we are able to do to support vulnerable people in our community is because of your generosity.
Be an Ark Angel this Christmas, and help us bring some Christmas cheer to homeless and vulnerable people in our community!
If you are looking for a volunteer role, either at the day centre or at our shop, please get in touch.
And please do spread the word - us a shout out and follow us on social media: we’re active on X (formally known as Twitter), Facebook, LinkedIn and Instagram.