Teesside homelessness charity gearing up to hand out tents and sleeping bags
LilyAnne's Wellbeing say they're helping people who are struggling
A homelessness charity in Teesside say they are gearing up to hand out tents and sleeping bags due to a lack of temporary accommodation.
LilyAnne's Wellbeing cafe says around 10 people a week are coming through their doors who are between sofa surfing and living on the streets.
They say many are in full time jobs and are struggling but they are there to help those who 'fit between the gaps' who need support, which are people who don't have a priority need.
A 'priority need' is someone who has a mental health condition, severe disability, someone who's in a domestic abuse situation escaping violence, someone who's vulnerable, they have a drug or alcohol addiction or they've left care etc.
Trevor Sherwood, co-creator of the charity, said: "If we were to say a school teacher was to face a relationship breakdown and one of them had to move out of the home, they wouldn't get a priority need because they were working, everything was seeming to be good in their lives, so they'd probably have to find a friend to sleep on their sofa or they'd have to face sleeping on the streets.
"If you're predominately someone who's rough sleeping and you have a drug or alcohol background, you're going to get support, you're going to get housed but our stance is everyone should be allowed to housed and it shouldn't just be people who demonstrate as the stereotypical homeless person.
"The people that don't meet the priority need that we're working with they end up having to go with private landlords and then they end up in really terrible housing situations but it takes three to six weeks to get a property and for those three to six weeks, they're living on the street. We've had people living in bus stops, under bridges and outside the police station.
"At the moment we support approxiamtely 10 people a week between sofa surfing and living on the streets. They're not the stereotypical homeless person, they're people who work full-time, they're people who hold up jobs, they're people who are embarrassed to access support and the simplest things such as a shower and being able to wash their clothes is massive for them.
"People just can't afford to live and people are struggling with the cost of living. I think even though we're through that crisis technically, people are still struggling to make ends meet and I think that's what it comes down to. I think peope are struggling to put food on, they're struggling to eat and put the heating on. Some people are making life choices that they're going to eat or they're going to pay their rent and I think when it comes to that, they're going to choose food."
Angela Arnold, co-creator of the charity, added: "I think when you have children as well it's even more challenging because if you can skip one month's rent but you can afford to keep thw heating on and keep them fed, you don't have to eat much yourself but they can't go without food like you can."