Amazing Grace Spaces is dedicated to supporting women out of homelessness and achieving recovery. As the charity was still in its infancy, Director Caroline Johnson didn't anticipate that it would secure funding from Lloyds Bank Foundation. However, the bid was successful and, as she explains, has made a significant impact on the organisation and those it supports one year into the grant.
I’ve worked with homeless people for many years, including working at a residential rehabilitation programme for women. It was hard to see how these people would ever be able to get out of the cycle they were in without more all-around support - they would spend a year getting in the right place and learning new skills, only to have to move back into the same problems. The support structure just wasn't in place to give them the continued help they needed. There was an enormous resource gap for people who needed affordable housing combined with longer-term support.
Amazing Grace Spaces is about offering a safe place to move on with continued support in recovery. It is the biggest and hardest thing they will do. We walk the journey with them, helping them find suitable projects and access the proper support, whether that’s to combat addiction, find employment or access mental health services, for example. We help them stay positive and focused. Without this, the pressure is too great, without support they will go back to what they know in the same cycle.
As part of our work finding and creating affordable housing offers, we participated in a pilot with another charity, refurbishing shipping containers to offer affordable housing to individuals and couples in partnership with local councils, churches, and partner organisations. Amazing Grace Spaces continued this work; we now have five units across Newport and Wales and offer tenants assessment, mentoring, training and work experience, helping to establish a sound base for recovery.
Emergency shelter pods we make ourselves is another affordable housing offer. These are 8x6ft pods with a toilet, bed and a USB socket. They can be placed on private land to give people who have experienced homelessness security and safety while they start receiving support to rebuild their life. It's a very short-term solution that starts people on their journey and finding the right help.
We have 30 pods up and running at the moment. We focus on working with individuals so will only place one or two pods together. Although this could save money, grouping them tends to create communities where it's easy for someone to be pulled down by others who are finding the journey difficult. Supporting individuals has increased chance of success.
Our offer expanded when Green Pastures, a Christian organisation that buys property to help people who are homeless, bought us a house in December 2019. We were still setting up and finding our feet when the pandemic happened in March 2020, and there was a big drive to take people off the streets. We opened the doors, specialising in supporting women. The house can support up to five women at any one time – and while they are with us, we work with them to find out their strengths and weaknesses and build a map to recovery in a safe space.
When we applied for Lloyds Bank Foundation funding, we had only been running for four years so I didn’t think we would even be considered. But the application process was very simple, and we worked with a regional manager on some additional points when we had our interview. It was fantastic. We received a £50,000 unrestricted grant over two years, that length of funding took a huge amount of pressure off us.
Our focus has been on the house, covering essentials like insurance and utility bills – and the unrestricted funding has been a lifeline. We had a House Manager in post, but the funding came to an end and we hadn’t managed to secure a new grant. The Foundation's flexibility enabled us to continue to fund this post for the three months it took to find a new funder. It was a huge relief. Without it we may have lost the person we had trained and had the expense of recruiting, and a waste of charity money.
Whilst the funding gave us the breathing space to plan, it was the fantastic non-financial support that gave us the skills to understand what we needed to consider and how to evaluate it – and it has completely transformed where we are as an organisation. - Caroline Johnson, Director, Amazing Grace Spaces
The Foundation really has been the link that attracts and joins everything together. We are using some of the funding to hire an accountant, and as we were able to pay in full earlier than expected, we have built a great relationship with them, and they have provided a trainee to work with us on our accounts weekly, which has freed up our time to focus on strategy.
We received support from an external consultant provided by Lloyds Bank Foundation through their organisational development programme, they helped us develop and update our business plan, considering all sides of what we do – the existing house, as well as our social enterprise which manufactures the pods and containers. He is an expert on social enterprise, and has shared his knowledge and insight of how we can make our model even better, forge local partnerships, and help us be more sustainable in the long run.
Whilst the funding gave us the breathing space to plan, it was the fantastic non-financial support that gave us the skills to understand what we needed to consider and how to evaluate it – and it has completely transformed where we are as an organisation.
Director Caroline Johnson, left and Lloyds Bank Foundation Grant Manager, Rachel Marshall, right
Sometimes even the very small things can lead to big change. The short training courses offered have led to some big changes. I took part in a charity accountancy workshop, where the trainer pointed us towards budgeting spreadsheets and additional support, and we have really benefitted from these resources. Our board of Trustees too have practical support and structure for the board to operate within, working together as a team. We took part in a facilitated forum with colleagues from Lloyds Banking Group too which generated so many ideas for us, particularly for our social enterprise. It has changed the way we work, giving the support and challenging in a supportive way to help manage the charity effectively.
As a director of a small charity, my role is very varied. You don't often get the chance to reflect on how far you have come, but looking back now, it's thanks to the support of the Foundation we've been able to come so far this year. They have encouraged and supported us to do even more, and we have full confidence that we can achieve even more knowing we have their support for another year. We look more credible with their support and having been awarded a £50,000 grant, and we hope that it will help us to secure more funding.
Despite all the great work done to help people living on the streets during the pandemic, we are seeing more and more tents back on the streets. But we've now got such a great plan in place, we are looking at how we can expand and help more people get off the streets and stay off the streets. Thanks to Lloyds Bank Foundation we have become a more stable organisation and we are excited about what we can achieve in the future.
