New service set up to give Northampton homeless community job-seeker and empowerment coaching

A new team has been launched at the Hope Centre to give homeless people opportunities, help with their emotional troubles and work with them to create a better start for the future.

Leaning for Living is one of a number of social enterprises the Hope Centre runs to help homeless people and rough sleepers get back on their feet, through IT training and job-seeker skills.

It follows a series of successful projects from Hope Catering, to Hope Gardening, Hope Retail and Hope Tools, which either gives participants work experience or qualifications for a job.

CEO Robin Burgess said: "The service that we are launching after Christmas - Learning for Living - is very much helping anybody, including rough sleepers, and support them to make a go of independant living.

"We will give them the skills, training and most of all the confidence to move forward into a post-homelessness lifestyle.

"We are trying to really intervene and offer support with housing so people who are moved on, in hostels, in arranged short term temporary accomodation get the self-belief that they can get a job and make a go of things and we will deal with other issues as they arise like drugs and alcohol or trauma-related mental illness."

One person who has benefitted from the work of the centre is a 57-year-old volunteer cleaner who told the Chronicle & Echo that the Hope Centre has thrown him a lifeline when he needed it most.

After a period of sofa-surfing he found shut-eye sleeping on the back of the bus at Greyfriars bus station before a doctor managed to get him rehoused.

"I suffer from depression and I live on my own," he said. "The only interaction I have is [at the Hope Centre]. It means everything to me, if you'd have seen me not long back you would have thought I was on the streets, I was not looking after myself.

"I walk in every morning, I enjoy the walk. I live in Duston. As soon as I wake up I'm out to try and fill my day. I was self-employed for 30 years where I used to work surfacing the roads. I thought I had a break down but it was a trauma I went through and while I was in the hospital my marrige went.

"I started using this place to volunteer and I'm getting better. They help me here as much as I help them, it works both ways. It's been everything to me, it's been a lifeline."

The Hope Centre moved into Oasis House in 2012 and supports 120 homeless people every day, providing them with hot meals, showers, clothes and delivers educational classes and training.

Gemma, who is heading up the Learning for Living programme, said: "I think employers are recognising people have transferable skills but society always have stigmas around addiction and criminal records. There are a number of businesses willing to meet people through a work trial and these barriers disappear.

"We are shaping a new service to give them access to training and get them prepared for the workplace. We have a huge, unique opportunity to help them with work experience and build competencies for better access to the job market."