Welcome to our July blog post!

There’s a new face in our office this month as we have a student from the University of Cambridge interning for six weeks over the summer. Matthew has written our Annual Review and an Impact Report on our Older Homeless Service. Both will be up on our website soon.

We were delighted to welcome That’s Cambridge TV to our allotment project. They filmed and interviewed Ruth, our Project Co-ordinator, and one of our previous residents who still comes to the allotment regularly as he finds being in that space has such a positive impact on his life and mental health. You can see the video here: https://youtu.be/hz2xH1Go8WQ

Our allotment featured in Cambridge Veg Fest as part of Cambridge Sustainable Food’s allotment tour. Local chef Alex Collis presented a vegan cookery demonstration using produce grown on the allotment.

Our twelve move on houses, each with three to five bedrooms, are for people who have been in supported accommodation and are preparing to move into their own tenancies. We help residents to work on clearing any debts, to address mental health issues, to learn how to budget and to gain the skills they will need to manage their own property successfully. Each move on house is assigned a Project Worker who visits regularly and Shanice, our Meaningful Activities Worker, helps residents get in to work or to access educational courses. One resident is taking a Criminology degree with Open University and another is attending a substance misuse course while others are working or undertaking voluntary work. Our aim is that within two years, residents will be in a position to move into their own permanent accommodation.

A group of students from the University of Cambridge has made “Their Story”, a film telling the stories of people living on the city’s streets and in supported accommodation. We were very happy to be on the Q&A panel at the film’s launch. You can watch the film here: https://www.facebook.com/theirstorycambridge/videos/678647452607612/

One of our residents moved in to his own one bedroom flat this month. He’d been with us for nineteen months after a tragic set of circumstances in his personal life left him homeless and sleeping in his car, having run up substantial debts. Louisa, our Mental Health Nurse, helped him to address his mental health issues and he had weekly meetings with our in house counsellor. A Project Worker supported him at medical appointments where he was diagnosed with a long term medical condition, for which we’ve helped him get the appropriate benefits. Our Older Homeless Service will keep in touch with him in the coming months as he settles in to his new home. If you’d like to make a donation in support of setting up our residents as they move into their own tenancies, you can do so through our website https://cambridgecyrenians.org.uk/support-us/

Pay It Forward Vouchers is a new scheme in the city, set up by Cambridge resident Theresa Feetenby. You can buy vouchers from one of the participating cafes or market stalls and then either hand it directly to a person in need or leave it to be distributed. This is a wonderful way to pay forward kindness and we are so pleased to have received some vouchers for our residents to use. The scheme is developing quickly so check out the Pay It Forward website for more information https://www.pifgiftvouchers.org/

And finally, some hot weather advice when you’re homeless and on the streets, it’s very easy to get dehydrated and suffer from heat exhaustion. Giving someone sunscreen, water and an umbrella for shade will help. If you see somebody in difficulties, please contact Streetlink on https://www.streetlink.org.uk/