A Message from Jo
This is my first blog to record some of the experiences and stories I witness in my role as CEO of Mustard Tree. My aim is to bring you ‘behind-the-scenes’, to see the reality of fighting poverty in Greater Manchester. Thank you for reading, please subscribe and let me know any questions you may have in the comments, or email information@mustardtree.org.uk, and I will try and answer in future blogs.
Thank you for your support - we could not run this charity without you.
Friday 30th June
We’ve had a busy week with press enquiries, asking our thoughts on Prince William’s campaign to end homelessness. Anything that champions compassion, dignity and love for people who are homeless or vulnerably housed must be positive. We hope this will be a long-term, local partner based programme of support - helping to rebuild the safety net around housing - something Greater Manchester has been focusing on for the past 5 years through the GM Homelessness Action Network, Manchester Homelessness Partnership and Real Living Wage campaigns.
We welcome to national leadership as we know how important our GM Mayor - Andy Burnham - has been in uniting different partners to focus on homelessness.
We also need to see real progress in building more houses. I don’t know how we can talk about ending homelessness without building homes? I hope we see changes that means affordable homes are a moral requirement of our society - rather than housing being a commodity for profit.
This BBC article talks about people living in motor homes in the US and made me think of a person I met last week who had been sleeping in his car outside our charity. He was on a zero-hours contract as a security guard so could not afford to rent somewhere. His car was stolen during the day when he was at work. He had never been homeless before and his housing assessment was 7 days away because he was low priority…
“I don’t know how we can talk about ending homelessness without building homes?”
We ended up working with our charity partner (Coffee4Craig) to share paying for a cheap hotel for him to stay in for a few days while he waited for his assessment and helped him work through his most urgent problems.
Trying to prevent homelessness is something we do every day and there are thousands of people a year that register with Mustard Tree (and other charities) whose pain, housing situation and financial worries are hidden.
Thank you to our supporters, volunteers and partners - we are so grateful for your kindness and care.
We want to build a movement for positive change - creating a space for people who are as saddened as we are by the inequity in our country.
We want to offer practical ways for people who care about fairness, opportunity, dignity for all to get involved.
Please join our High Fivers campaign, reply to this email for more details or message information@mustardtree.org.uk. Thanks for reading and whether this blog interests or irritates you, thank you for your time!
Join our Movement
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To those who have already joined our campaign or give to us monthly - THANK YOU! Please help us get the word out by sharing this newsletter with family, friends, colleagues and community members.
Your kind donations are vital for us to continue our work and are much appreciated by us all.
LISTEN: There's a Will - is there a way?