In October 2018, 63 leaders from the business and public sectors took part in the first CCP SleepOut. The night was a great success raising £60,929, which funded extended winter shelters for 70 nights. 71 people were helped and 20 of those were supported into more permanent housing.

In 2019, we chose not to run a SleepOut as public sector funding for this area was such that there was unlikely to be a need for the funds on such a scale as the previous year.

On 9th March we announced plans for SleepOut 2020 (read more here) and then the world was turned on its head by COVID 19. This leaves us with a number of uncertainties:

In the event of a second spike or a local lockdown we may have to postpone or cancel the event at little or no notice.

What the funding and provision for street and young homeless will be and will there be a residual gap left to fill.

Will the impact of COVID 19 on businesses and organisations make it more difficult for supporters to participate in such an initiative.

One thing we can be sure of however, is that even if the help for the homeless this winter is there, sections of our society face a very tough winter. The economic fallout from COVID 19 is unprecedented. Forecasts suggest that unemployment could reach 11% of the workforce, which is likely to hit those already struggling and young people even harder. Food bank demand has been very high and there are no signs of this demand slowing. So no matter happens over the next few months the calls on charities like CCP for help are likely to be great.

In the light of all of the above we wanted to seek the views of previous participants and the wider public on some possible options we are considering, to help inform our decision making process, This survey should take no more than a couple of minutes to complete and we really your support by completing it.

Cordell Ray
Chief Executive