Why you should invest in homelessness providers

Recently one of our residents of The Foyer completed a piece of work at College about charities. He thought it had been lost, but luckily he found it and wanted to share it….

He is very passionate about sharing his experiences to raise awareness about homelessness in the hope of preventing others having to share his experiences. He would like this to encourage other organisations and individuals to invest in homelessness providers to help them support the people who need their services.

Good  afternoon / evening and welcome!

I’m excited to speak to you about volunteering at the homeless shelter. Volunteering involves making the difference that could change someone’s life forever. All it takes is one person to help another and by volunteering at the homeless shelter. Volunteering is about giving your time and skills without pay for the benefit of others the local community and very importantly yourself. Has anyone ever stopped to help you when you were in need! How did it make you feel?

There are many problems facing our charity. For example, we need more hostels for those who are in need and sleeping on the streets. People deserve to have a bed for the night as much as the next. Just think about what would you do if you were homeless?

People looking down on you all the time, thinking there is no hope, but with more volunteers we can make them people feel like they belong because they do and if you can’t see that then you are despicable. We need more money to do this. People need to stop being selfish and thinking about themselves because at the end of the day all homeless people aren’t bad people.

Others don’t know this as they all think the stereotypical homeless person is a drug addict or a criminal, but no not everyone is like that and it disgusts me as most people that are homeless have had bad pasts or things happen to them, they just weren’t strong enough to pull themselves back up.

I know what it’s like, it’s not nice, it’s not a choice, if it was, I wouldn’t be homeless myself. Do you think we want to ask people for money? Do you think it makes us happy begging for help? The answer is no, it doesn’t. Having people judge you all the time isn’t something you can ignore, it’s something that scars us for life. All we want is to be like everyone else, have a nice house to go to, a warm bed to sleep in and 3 meals a day, full meals. Its horrible not being able to eat having no money people cry themselves to sleep on a night due to their problems.

Furthermore, it is very important to help the charity as myself and others don’t want people to go through this alone. We need more support and help than you.

Just take a second to think about the reasons people go homeless. I went homeless when I was 17, this was because of my family. It was nerve racking going out into the world at 17 on your own, with no one to guide you or help you, no parents to feed you, no warm bed. I had to ask my friend if I could stay at his for a week. I have slept under skate parks. I’ve had so many sleepless nights.

I survived because I was helped by a project called the YMCA Foyer. It’s a hostel, not the greatest place to be but it’s a place to sleep and eat. They helped me pick myself back up. I’m now 18 and still living there and with your help and companionship we can design new places like the YMCA all over the world to give people hope that they are going have a good future and a happy life because at the end of the day, that’s what everyone wants, to get out of life being successful.

Think of the future not yourself.

Thank you.

If you are interested in supporting YMCA Humber to unlock potential in young and vulnerable people please contact us on 01472 359621 or email info@ymca-humber.com