Renters’ Rights and the shift towards prevention in the West Midlands

Across the West Midlands, partners have been working for years to move homelessness support upstream. The focus has been on prevention, on building systems that reduce the chance of crisis before it happens. The Renters’ Rights Act sits within that same direction of travel. It changes how the private rented sector works, with the aim […]

Brighter Beginnings: supporting families in Birmingham

Elayos is a Birmingham-based charity working alongside mothers and babies through pregnancy, birth and those early months that can feel both joyful and overwhelming. Their work is rooted in doula support. That means walking alongside women in a practical and human way. Listening, advocating, and being there through pregnancy, labour and after birth. Many of […]

Prevention is designed in the everyday

Each autumn, every local authority in England records how many people are sleeping rough on one single night between 1 October and 30 November. This is called the rough sleeping snapshot. It is not a count of everyone who experiences homelessness across the year. It is a one night estimate, used to track patterns and […]

There’s a better way through Alternative Giving in the West Midlands

Across the region, people continue to show deep compassion for those facing homelessness. Every day, residents stop to ask how they can help, and many want to make sure their kindness leads to real, lasting change. In a recent article, Rough Sleeping: Ways to Help, we explored why focusing our help safely and in coordination […]

Give Help in the West Midlands

It’s not always easy to know how to help when someone is facing homelessness. Across the West Midlands, more than 300 organisations are working every day to prevent people from losing their homes, to support those who are already without one, and to make sure no one has to experience homelessness again. Their work follows […]

Commitment to Collaborate: an invitation to faith and community groups across the West Midlands

Across the West Midlands there has been steady, thoughtful work to strengthen the way organisations come together to prevent and relieve homelessness. Many people will already have heard of the Commitment to Collaborate toolkit, often called C2C. It was created by the WMCA Homelessness Taskforce with Birmingham Voluntary Service Council, and it was refreshed in […]

Hope Community Pantry: Strength in Community

Hope Community Pantry is part of the Street Support West Midlands network, where local people and organisations work together to reduce hardship and strengthen neighbourhoods. Based in Highgate, one of Birmingham’s most diverse and economically challenged areas, the pantry began in 2023 as part of the Your Local Pantry network. It is a ministry of […]

Want to help someone sleeping rough in the West Midlands? Here’s what to know first

Your compassion matters Across the West Midlands, the West Midlands Combined Authority (WMCA) Homelessness Taskforce is bringing partners together to design out homelessness by focusing on prevention at every stage. This work follows the Positive Pathway model, which offers a simple way to see how support fits together. The Pathway starts with universal prevention, which […]

Clouds End CIC: Supporting People Who Hoard with Compassion, Not Judgment

Clouds End CIC began with a simple but powerful belief: people who struggle with hoarding deserve compassion, understanding and tailored support, not judgment or stigma. The idea came about because hoarding was so often misunderstood. Too many saw clutter simply as a mess to be cleared, rather than a symptom of deeper struggles such as […]