Rough sleeping in England has increased by 169% in the last 8 years. Recent reports show that major cities now have more people at risk than ever before, in 2017 more than 8,000 people were reported to be sleeping on the streets each night in and around London. With these statistics increasing every year, homelessness charities are playing an increasingly vital role in supporting the thousands of people who’re living without a roof over their head. 

This year Deltra Group has chosen local charity, Whitechapel Mission as its partner for 2018/2019. Providing a safe space and support network for the homeless and marginalised, the charity works with individuals via the day centre, career advice and skills training sessions, as well as their complex needs support service to encourage people to address the issues that caused their homelessness, and to give them the skills and confidence to make a lasting change in their lives. 

Whitechapel Mission is open every day of the year, helping up to 300 homeless and vulnerable men and women each day. They do this without any public funding. Julian McCallum, MD of Deltra Group says: “Whitechapel Mission does an incredible job in the community. And, after seeing the amount of work and money that’s required to run the day centre and all the auxiliary services - with no public funding to help, we just knew it was a charity that we needed to get involved with.”   

“Homelessness is a growing problem, you can see that by the increasing number of rough sleepers. Unfortunately, the reality is that many of us are becoming numb to it, especially in London. I doubt there’s a commuter in the city that makes it to work without seeing someone in need.”  

McCallum continues: “It’s not going to change overnight, but we want to do everything we can to support the local community. That’s why we’ve set ourselves a challenging target to raise £4,500 – the cost to build a new computer centre to give the individuals using the centre the skills and confidence they need to change their lives.”  

Deltra has set a number of challenges throughout the year to ensure they hit their target, including the three peaks challenge next spring, which will see the team climb the three highest peaks of Scotland, England and Wales in 24 hours.   

Alongside the monetary contribution, the team are also providing support in other ways. Last month the team gave up their morning to volunteer at the charity’s Breakfast Challenge, helping to cook and serve hot breakfasts to those in need. Between them, they've also been building a winter-ready donation box to provide individuals with food, toiletries, clothing and household items during the challenging colder months. 

Consultant Jaina Chavda said: “We were really keen to help the charity in any way that we could, alongside fundraising we understood that donating our time could be just as valuable. We’ve got a number of volunteering sessions booked in throughout the year to support the staff at Whitechapel Mission and, having already completed the Breakfast Challenge, think it’s a brilliant way for everyone here at Deltra to see how our donations are helping the community first-hand.” 

If you’d like to donate to Deltra’s fundraising page you can do so by following this link: https://uk.virginmoneygiving.com/Team/DeltraGroup