Simon on the Streets

We have moved our Leeds office.  Our new address is:

The Cardigan Centre

Cardigan Road

LEEDS

LS6 1LJ

Due to this move we are no longer able to take donations of clothes, blankets or food.

Our friends at McGrath O’Toole have once again come up with a fantastic piece of work to support our cause.  Please watch and share this great Ad (and if you would like to make a donation too that would be perfect).

Crisis are calling for a change to the law following a rise in rough sleeping numbers.  The Department of Communities and Local Government (DCLG) revealed that 2,181 people were recorded by local councils across the country as sleeping rough on any one night, up from 1,768 in last year’s count (that’s 150 in Yorkshire and Humber up from 115 last year).

Crisis’  No One Turned Away campaign is pressing for a change in the law so that every homeless person who approaches their local council for help gets the advice and support they need and no-one is forced to sleep rough. In the face of these shocking figures it is all the more important that government acts now.

McGrath O’Toole who created our new gritty branding, “Turning Rough Lives Around”,  have created a series of campaigns associated with different times of the year, these winter months being particularly critical!

I am confident, if you are reading this, that you can spare £5 for a survival blanket.  You can donate at   http://www.justgiving.com/myfiverswithsimon

Don’t forget to tweet #myfiverswithsimon

There’s a Panorama programme on BBC1 tonight called ‘The Truth About Adoption’.  In a news item about the show http://news.bbc.co.uk/today/hi/today/newsid_9661000/9661713.stm the makers claim that children in care tend to go into multiple foster placements prior adoption.  They state the average term is for ten months.  So if a child was in foster care for 5 years on average they would have 6 different placements over that period.

Many of those we support have experienced life in the care system and usually as they have been quite problematic as children they will have experiences of more than the average number of placements.  From rough starts to feeling like they are being pushed from pillar to post leaves people feeling that nobody cares about them… and when they stop caring about themselves is when they are in real danger of falling into problematic behaviour.