News

Norwich restaurants sign up to StreetSmart, a winter campaign to raise funds to tackle homelessness

Having to find somewhere which may or may not be safe to lay your head and try to get a few hours’ sleep and survive a night with temperatures close to freezing sounds like something that was happening hundreds of years ago. Sadly and unforgivably it is happening now, in twenty-first century Norwich.

Members of our Norwich-based group Bridges, spent a very diverse and enjoyable afternoon at the Castle Museum.

If you think homelessness can't happen to you, think again. It can take just one thing to cause your life to spiral out of control.

A big thank you to everybody who entered our first ever Christmas card competition. We had lots of colourful entries and it was wonderful that some of the local schools and beaver groups got involved and submitted their designs.

Psychologically Informed Environment (PIE) is a phrase we hear more and more in our sector and something that is integral to the way St Martins works in many of our services.

In the last three months (July – Sep) 51 known individuals were found bedded down in Norwich, 17 of whom were new to the streets.  15 of these were found suitable accommodation by the Pathways service.

Fewer people carry cash nowadays, this can be a challenge for charities who rely on donations from the public to make a difference to the people that they support. Local homelessness charity St Martins have invested in secure, contactless technology.

Many people we see in Norwich hold down jobs while homeless - some of them even sleep rough.

St Martins is delighted to announce it has bagged £1,000 from Tesco’s Bags of Help community grant scheme. Bags of Help is run in partnership with environmental charity Groundwork, and sees grants raised from the sale of carrier bags awarded to thousands of local community projects every year. Since launching in 2015, it’s provided more than £60 million to over 18,000 local community projects.