Charity receives funding to help city homeless

A charity dedicated to helping the homeless will be able to provide homes to rent thanks to Plymouth City Council’s innovative Social Enterprise Investment Fund.

PATH, Plymouth Access to Housing has been awarded £127,500 under the fund to enable the charity to buy and lease properties.

The fund means the charity can expand its offer to help the homeless in Devon by providing and managing accommodation for people facing homelessness.

Service manager Kate Medhurst said: “This means a massive amount to us. As a charity we’ve always helped people facing homelessness into accommodation. “This is a step change and a new direction for us as we will be able to have a more direct involvement.”

The charity supports a wide range of people with accommodation issues. As well as rough sleepers, it helps find more permanent homes for those in temporary accommodation or more secure accommodation for many ‘sofa surfers’, the hidden homeless who rely on friends and family for somewhere to sleep.

PATH intends to buy a property which they can do up and rent out, making sure that the tenants are carefully matched. She added: “This is perfect timing for us as there are so many changes coming in for housing and we have the knowledge about what it takes to make a good landlord. This is great news.”

The charity is one of 10 organisations to have benefited in the fifth round of the fund is a mixture of loans and grants for social enterprises that help create jobs and bring redundant buildings back into use.

Councillor Chris Penberthy, Cabinet Member for Cooperatives and Housing said: “These organisations carry out some incredible work to make life better for the people of Plymouth. Those involved are passionate and committed to revitalising people and buildings all over the city.

“Not only that, they create jobs and help others become more skilled and confident, which has a huge long term positive impact on our communities right across the city.

So far we estimate that 160 jobs have been created as a result of this investment fund, 12 empty shops are in the process of being given new leases of life and each of them, in turn, are helping countless numbers of people of all ages.”

The recipients include:

• Stiltskin – £77,550 to pay for the first phase of the building project to transform disused WW2 Mustard Gas Decontamination Unit in Devonport Park into a Children’s Cultural Hub. This will be a space where children and their families can experience excellent quality arts, theatre, music and dance projects within the beautiful grounds of Plymouth’s oldest park.

• Stonehouse Action, Love Union Street – resident volunteers awarded £10,000 revenue funding for feasibility work to renovate premises on Union Street for community and commercial use.

• Plymouth Dance, The Changing Rooms at Tinside Lido – £5,000 for a feasibility study to explore converting the upper floor of the Lido into work space.

• Fair for You – £10,000 to help the charity expand into Plymouth. It offers lower income families better financial arrangements to pay for household essentials such as washing machines and fridges so that families don’t go into debt and still pay rent, council tax, and other utilities.

• Plymouth Arts Centre Redevelopment for Resilience – £90,000 towards the centre’s £1.2 million project to develop an underused building to provide new gallery, cinema and learning spaces. The project will double the capacity of its cinema and café/bar and increase income for centre

• Livewell Southwest Retail Outlet – £50,000 to help develop an shop, preferably close to the city centre, offering a range of clinical treatments such as podiatry, nail care, physiotherapy and health checks and products such as insoles, arms supports, creams etc.

• Cut Make and Trim – £96,300 to set up a clothing manufacturing business in Stonehouse. It aims to produce high-end designer goods using highly skilled workers and graduates.

• Plymouth Social Enterprise Start Up and Acceleration Programme – £100,000 so that it can continue to deliver social enterprise start up support for Plymouth social entrepreneurs and to support Seedbed social accelerator programme

* Rhythm City Dance Studio – £25,000 towards training and feasibility study to shape their future expansion programme.