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A new charity has been launched today to help end the growing issue of homelessness in the island, and to support those who find themselves without a home.
At Home in Guernsey is being led by the Guernsey Community Foundation with financial support from Specsavers. It will focus on all forms of homelessness and those at risk of entering that situation – be it rough sleepers, sofa surfers, or those trying to exit unsuitable accommodation.
It plans to lobby the States to raise awareness and instigate change, while consulting with social housing providers, private landlords to back up its one-to-one support with individuals.
Specsavers has offered three years' worth of funding to allow staff to be recruited and an operating base to be found. The huge local business already offers optical and audiology care for homeless people in the UK and Ireland and now wants to get involved in the local space.
Appleby and Oak Group have pledged free assistance to the charity to establish and incorporate it.
Pictured: Specsavers has committed significant financial support to the charity in its early years. It already offers optical and audiology services for free to homeless people in the UK.
The Foundation has been working on such an initiative for two years after publishing a report into local homelessness which found the number of people insecurely housed was significant, and a lack of formal definition was hampering efforts to fully quantify the problem.
A poverty report later published by the States showed that there was an increase of 50% in the numbers without adequate housing between 2016 and 2021.
A charity from Scotland was then commissioned to investigate the issue and what should be done about, presenting its findings at the end of last year.
“[Homeless Network Scotland] were unequivocal: Guernsey needed a dedicated homelessness charity - either one that was started from scratch, or one that was 'incubated' by the Foundation,” The Foundation said.
Foundation CEO Jim Roberts said it would “incubate” the charity for 18-months, running it out of its current premises at the KGV.
“At Home In Guernsey will shortly be advertising for a chief executive to take this forward at speed. And while Specsavers' generous donation goes a long way towards meeting the charity's running costs, especially in its first year of operation, we will be looking to raise additional funds so that we can increase the support we plan to offer,” he said.
Specsavers’ CEO John Perkins said while homelessness is very visible in UK cities and not in the island, “the uncomfortable truth is that Guernsey has a significant hidden homeless problem, which as a community we need to do all we can to support.
“Alongside pledging financial support, many of our colleagues are looking forward to offering their day-to-day expertise to help the charity get set up, as well as hands-on volunteering when it is fully up and running.”
A full launch event is taking place this morning with various representatives, third sector organisations, politicians, social housing providers, and philanthropists. Express will publish further stories and a podcast on Friday diving deeper into the initiative and the problem of homelessness in Guernsey.
Express will be publishing further reports on this new charity over the coming days.
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