The Connection at St Martin’s works with people who are rough sleeping to move away from, and stay off, the streets of London. We’re alongside people as they recover from life on the streets and move towards a meaningful, fulfilling future. With practical support, we help lift the pressures that push people into rough sleeping.
We work with people, not for them. There is no ‘one size fits all’ approach to tackling homelessness – everyone is unique. Our job is to help people move away from rough sleeping, changing their lives in the way that they want to, at their own pace.
Everybody can leave homelessness behind, but recovery from homelessness is often a very long process, and can be full of stops and starts. We build trusting relationships and offer services that build confidence and self-belief to support people every step of the way.
At The Connection we:
• Get to know people and help them identify what support they would like and how we can best work together to meet their goals and aspirations;
• Provide short term support, advice and case management to help people to search for and get into work, and to access accommodation. This includes linking up with services for anyone whose needs can be better met elsewhere;
• Provide further assessments for people whose journey from the streets might be affected by mental health issues, substance misuse, physical health and/or offending. We work intensively with these people in the long-term – supporting them to recognise their own strengths, recover from crisis and move away from the streets for good;
• Run specialist outreach services to connect with people on the streets, get to know them, and encourage them to move away from the streets;
• Enable people to access the full range of support, including health services and help with housing and resettlement, to address the pressures that force people into homelessness and move on to a meaningful, fulfilling future and a home;
• Provide support to resolve migration issues and link in with specialist advice where needed;
• Offer practical services like showers & laundry facilities, hot meals, medical appointments and access to telephones and computers;
• Offer opportunities and activities that help people to build the skills, confidence and resilience to recover from homelessness.
Our frontline services are delivered across three sites – in and around our resource centre at Adelaide Street, at the Bridge project which offers emergency accommodation in a former hotel, and at St Martin’s House, our supported housing project in South London. We also work with partners at Solace Women’s Aid on a new project looking the issue of women and homelessness and with partners in Westminster on improving how services and systems work together.
Read more about our response to the Covid-19 pandemic here.
To support our work you can donate here .
Watch our video to find out more about what we do…