Pictured: The Petrus team unpacking a generous donation from J Parkers.
Throughout winter, our hub has been providing support to some of the most vulnerable people in Rochdale.
Open Monday to Saturday, our hub provides hot breakfasts, drinks, showering facilities, toiletries, sanitary products, laundry facilities and access to clean clothes, all completely free of charge for our service users.
The hub is also a place where people can access support such as welfare advice, employability skills, and food parcels.
Healthcare support is provided by Homeless Alliance Response Team nurses, and we also arrange access to dentists, alcohol and drug treatment and wellbeing activities.
6,647 visits to our hub were recorded between October – December of 2023.
During this time, we provided:
- 4,361 hot meals
- 488 food bank vouchers / food parcels
- 340 bundles of warm winter clothing and toiletries
- 347 connections to primary health services
- 194 connections to substance misuse services
In addition to these staggering figures, we provided support to 48 people at risk of rough sleeping, delivered 41 Personal Housing Plans, and counted 1,017 visits to our mental health and wellbeing and social groups.
The demand for support through the winter months continues to grow year on year and this is backed up by the latest figures on rough sleeping which show a 20% rise in people sleeping rough in Rochdale on a single night, and a 200% rise in neighbouring Bury.
The Winter Warmer campaign which ran from November to March has helped us provide support to so many people in need during this time. 20 business became donation stations, helping us collect warm clothing, blankets, and tinned goods for food parcels, and over £6,000 was donated to support the appeal.
All 221 of our service users received a gift at Christmas and 85 Christmas Dinners were served up from our hub.
Thank you to all who donated to the appeal!