Volunteers reach out with homeless survey

Volunteer speak to a rough sleeper on the seafront

The Galvanise Brighton and Hove project is led by the city’s YMCA charities, supported by a wide range of local organisations and businesses, that aims to understand the lives and aspirations of people living on the streets, and to find better solutions.

As part of the projects' Connections Week' during the last week of October, volunteers went out to survey rough sleepers in the city.

The information collected by the volunteers will support the City’s Rough Sleepers Strategy which aims eradicate rough sleeping in Brighton and Hove by 2020.

Volunteers talking to rough sleepers in Brighton and Hove as part of the Galvanise Connections Week project

Tracey Wilkes signed up to volunteer for Galvanise after seeing a sharp increase in street homeless in Brighton and Hove.

She said: “I originally signed up for two evening shifts but have just finished my third am shift in a row.

"Getting up at 4am in the cold when tired is not an ideal start to my morning. Giving myself a talking to about how I am leaving a warm bed gave me the motivation to get up and feel a bit ashamed of moaning as I was about to engage with people who do not have this option.

“Over three mornings between 5am and 9am, we interviewed a number of street homeless men.

"There was charismatic Ben, sleeping on the streets for 15 years, his partner had been killed by a drunk driver and he fell out with his landlady when he saw her driving over the limit.

"There was Mark, 32 and homeless through a relationship break up. And John a painter and decorator homeless through relationship breakdown and doesn’t see his four kids – all had a story.”

After the Galvanise surveys are collected, the data will be analysed and then presented at a community debrief tomorrow (December 5) at the i360.

In the short term, Galvanise Brighton and Hove said it aims to improve local support services for homeless people. The longer term aim is to ensure that homeless people are housed in permanent, safe, appropriate and affordable housing with the right sort of support in order to sustain it.

Galvanise is part of the European Campaign to End Street Homelessness, a project which has seen 1,000 volunteers survey rough sleepers in cities across Europe, from Valencia to London.

To find out more, visit: www.galvanisebh.org