Lifehouse - more than a place to stay
A Lifehouse is more than a bed or shelter for the night. We get people their life back.
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Think of the best time of your life. Were you alone?
And what were you doing? You had a sense of purpose. You had something or someone to care about. The worst time is when you lose these things.
With a large element of fun every Lifehouse targets what matters most to the people we serve - purpose and relationships. Our 83 centres for men, women and families around the UK and Ireland offer activities and training to help improve the self-esteem, mental health and employment prospects of our service users.
To address the lack of positive relationships for many residents, The Salvation Army has set up a partnership with social enterprise organisation Goals UK, to provide self-esteem training in all Lifehouses for service users.
To help develop purpose, The Salvation Army is creating 900 posts which will be filled by long-term unemployed people, referred by Jobcentre Plus and funded by the DWP's Future Jobs Fund, whose job will be to set up fun activities and community projects.
Losing the stigma of staying in a 'hostel'
For several years The Salvation Army has been refocusing its services for homeless people based on principles set by our founder William Booth but still those who stay with us could not escape the stigma of being in a hostel.
Rather than hire a branding agency we asked the people who know best, the people in our services - service users and staff to choose the name for us. People can now say 'I'm in a Lifehouse' with a message that things are on the up.
We believe everyone is valuable and no-one should be stigmatised because of their past or where they live.
The Salvation Army hopes that, as a culture, we will start viewing people who are 'homeless' as people who have a contribution to play in our society. We know that just changing a name - from hostel to Lifehouse - may not solve social exclusion immediately. But it's a start!
Since 1865, The Salvation Army has looked at helping the whole person and not just their problems. We know that putting a roof over someone's head is useful, but not the solution.
Helping the whole person: a Salvation Army tradition
Providing help with housing and benefits is just one part of addressing the needs of homeless and vulnerable people. The Salvation Army's The Seeds of Exclusion 2009 report reveals that relationship breakdown is the biggest reason for homelessness - and that when people have no-one to love, or to love them, and nothing to do or to feel good about, then drugs and heavy drinking often fill the gap.
To get to the heart of breaking the cycle of homelessness we've found you must first change the person and not just their conditions, as Salvation Army founder William Booth wrote in his remarkable book In Darkest England and The Way Out (1890).
A visionary social reformer ahead of his time, William Booth believed that charity demeaned the individual and people should be offered a ‘hand up' and not ‘hand outs' to get them back on their feet. Booth believed in a holistic approach of "soup, soap and salvation".
Today, The Salvation Army remains committed to doing all we can to ensure that disadvantaged people are given respect and access to the practical, social and spiritual support they need to realise their God-given potential and recover their personal dignity. We're seeing first-hand the transformative effects with people who are re-housed, reuniting with family and getting back to work.
'You gave me back my dreams'
Ovi, a successful stage manager and performer, went from living in five-star hotels to living on the streets when his marriage fell apart. Now he's doing backflips again after help from The Salvation Army.
Since the age of nine, Ovi had travelled the world performing in a range of daredevil circus acts including the flying trapeze and acrobatic routines.
In 1997 Ovi settled in the UK and became a successful stage manager and performer, working with a host of household names in pantomime including Russ Abbott, Shane Ritchie, Joe Pasquale and Lisa Riley. All this was lost when his marriage broke up, and the emotional turmoil caused him to lose his livelihood and his home. Being on the streets he sank into depression, and began to drink heavily.
He turned to The Salvation Army's Swan Lodge centre in Sunderland for help. Within the first day of his arrival, staff quickly assessed Ovi's needs and talents, and gave him brochures for circus schools to get him back doing what he loves.
Now, Ovi is doing backflips again and is running his own circus performance company. He says: 'My dreams disappeared when I was on the streets but I came to your centre and was helped to get all my dreams back.'
To say thank you to the staff, Ovi returns to the centre each week as a volunteer to help run an Arts Ceramic Project in the centre.
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