The homeless charity, Broadway

We are proud to support Broadway, a London based homeless charity. Broadway helps over 4,000 people each year to get their lives back on track, find a job and keep a home.

Most people Broadway helps want to move away from a life of homelessness but need help to do so. Homelessness could happen to anyone. In fact:

• The average person is only three pay cheques away from becoming homeless
• The most common cause of homelessness is relationship breakdown
• For every one homeless person you see sleeping on the streets there are 100 people living in hostels and 1100 households living in unsafe, overcrowded accommodation
• 78% of homeless people lack the skills to be able to live on their own

Broadway believes people become homeless through utterly desperate circumstances, where sleeping on the streets is their only resort. These people have no support networks, no money, no choice but to face the danger, pain and distress of sleeping rough on the streets.

How Broadway helps

The charity’s mission is to support, challenge and inspire people on their journey from street to home. They achieve this through a range of projects including:

• Specialist outreach teams who go out late at night and early in the morning to work with rough sleepers in the city
• Providing accommodation in specialist hostels
• Offering tailored work and learning programmes focusing on basic skills, training needs and helping people progress into employment
• Providing a reconnection service, supporting clients to build positive relationships with their parents, children, siblings and other significant people in their lives
• Running a day centre offering access to essential services including, a GP, nurse and podiatrist, as well as mental health and drug and alcohol misuse specialists
• Debt and financial advice teams who help with budgeting and money management
• Broadway’s groundbreaking private rented sector scheme, Real Lettings, which was developed in response to the lack of affordable social housing in London. Real Lettings, helps formerly homeless people move into independent housing in the private rented sector

How KFH helps

KFH staff volunteer on Broadway’s outreach shifts, where the charity goes out late at night and early in the morning to engage with people sleeping on the streets. Gill Powell, Kinleigh Folkard & Hayward Lettings Manager at Balham said: “The outreach shift was a real eye opener and gave me a reality check. It made me realise that what I thought was a hard week for me was nothing compared to what these guys faced on a daily basis. They really don’t have a single penny to their name and suffer from all sorts of problems, from mental health, poor upbringing, drugs, drink, etc and probably with a bit of guidance and support some of these problems could be resolved.”

Everyone involved with the charity is committed to ending street homelessness. Broadway does not believe it is acceptable that anyone in the 21st century should have to sleep on the streets and promises to do everything in their power to support an individual to move off the street, access accommodation and start to rebuild their life.

Lee Watts, Managing Director of Kinleigh Folkard & Hayward says: “We are delighted to be partnered with a charity such as Broadway and although our organisations are dealing with people in need of homes for many different reasons,
we share the common goal of finding them places to live.“

If you too would like to support the charity Broadway, or just find out more, visit Broadway www.broadwaylondon.org