St Petrock's awarded £100k to provide emergency accommodation

A vital first step towards Exeter’s homeless charity, St Petrock’s, providing faster access to emergency accommodation was made with the recent grant of £100,000 from the Garfield Weston Foundation.

Mel Hartley, project manager at St Petrock’s, explains “We’re extremely grateful to the Garfield Weston Foundation for this donation which will help us purchase a property, allowing us to support clients quickly off the streets and into temporary accommodation.

“We know that early intervention is crucial in helping prevent those people new to homelessness from becoming entrenched in rough sleeping lifestyles.   In 2011, we set up our Private Rent & Support Service to help individuals with low to medium support needs secure tenancies in the private rented sector and provide support to help sustain them. 

"However, this can take a number of weeks to arrange and while we work closely with local authorities to support people into their emergency provision there are still a significant number who are not able to access this help.

“The property we plan to purchase will help alleviate this situation, provide a period of stability and act as a trial tenancy for clients, while our PRS service secures decent and affordable, long-term accommodation.  We estimate that between 30-45 people a year with severe housing needs will benefit from this project and be able to ‘make a fresh start’.”

Philippa Charles, director of Garfield Weston Foundation noted, “In making this award the Trustees commented on the importance of supporting vulnerable people to lead safe, healthy and independent lives.”