Church and homelessness survey
Churches across the UK are involved with individuals on their journey out of homelessness. This is not just trying to help them find accommodation but involves other social actions such as improving life skills such as literacy, night shelters, addiction groups, etc. This is because homelessness is a complex problem that often has multiple causes which play out on an individual level. Many people who experience homelessness face a number of complex and overlapping issues, such as drug and alcohol addiction, mental health problems, childhood trauma, poverty and destitution. And this is the visible part of homelessness, let alone people who are in emergency accommodation, 'sofa surfing', etc
The charity Word on the Streets has teamed up with Church Housing Trust and Housing Justice to create a short survey about how your church responds to the needs of homeless people. It should take between 5-10 minutes.
The purpose of the survey is to find out what churches are doing for homeless people and the challenges you face in meeting the seemingly increasing demand. We will use this information to inform church leaders and policy makers about the role the church community is playing, and the support and resources we need.
Before you start, it would be helpful to look up the 'level of deprivation' for your locality. If your church is in England, please do this by typing in the church's postcode here: www2.cuf.org.uk/poverty-england/poverty-map and note the result shown by the colour of the map for your location so that you can enter it in question 4. If you are located in Northern Ireland, Scotland or Wales, the process is a little more complicated. Please just enter the postcode of your church and we will look up the 'level of deprivation' for you.
The survey can be found here: www.surveymonkey.co.uk/r/ChurchandHomelessness