Over 230,000 households are experiencing the reality of homelessness in the UK, according to Crisis as well as new Government figures. Now, a Community Interest Company called Yes It’s Possible (www.yes-its-possible.org), based in Ealing, is committed to work with its charity and business partners to significantly reduce that figure by providing much-needed training, coaching and placing people into work.
Yes It’s Possible is a bridge between business, charity and volunteers that secures donations and raises funds for the most vulnerable people in society. This is a big mission, but to tackle homelessness, Yes It’s Possible has already started to place people in work, supports local homeless charities like “Acton Homeless Concern” and St. Mungos and has donated new suits for interviews, spoken to landlords to accept DSS clients and expanded our database of companies that take people on from difficult backgrounds.
Life coach, entrepreneur, author and motivational speaker and single mum of twins Astrid Schmitt-Bylandt set up Yes, It’s Possible CIC, because:
“In West London, at least, homelessness should just not be something people have to be exposed to. Homelessness is suffering beyond what many of us could endure. But so many brilliant and exceptionally talented people end up as homeless or sleeping rough and losing their way in life.
If you have no fixed address, getting a job is virtually impossible. If you have no job than finding a place to rent is virtually impossible, so homelessness and unemployment trap feed off one another in a vicious circle.
Normally, you would hope that the benefits system would step in to do what it is meant to do – give short-term assistance to get people back on track, but they have their own ‘catch-22s’. The council can’t help without seeing the tenancy agreement, but a landlord won’t agree to a tenancy without a deposit and a month’s rent. Of course, that’s all provided you can find a landlord who wants to rent to homeless individuals and families. How do people escape from this? It’s almost never a choice to be homeless, it’s a failure of the current system to address the traps and catches that it brings.”
To find out more and to pick out some genuine success stories of people, contact Yes It’s Possible at events@yes-its-possible.org, call 07711343450 or 020 87401592.
