This September, Team HTHG will be taking part in a sponsored Cycle around Millport, 10.25miles, in order to raise funds towards our rent of a much needed storage unit. If you want to get involved and help us achieve our goal, please let us know.

What a storage unit will mean for the HTHG volunteers, the people we support and our donors of household items....

For the past few years we have been assisting people in temporary homeless accommodation services to move on to their own tenancies as quickly and as stress-free as possible. This is often challenging work. We are a group of volunteers who go out at night after our own jobs to collect furniture items of which we have to deliver that evening as we have no storage space.

Moving on from supported accommodation to a permanent home is often stressful for people, they worry that as soon as they sign for their keys they are immediately start getting charged for rent on that property. Discretionary Housing Benefit is an option to ease this stress of being charged for 2 rents, however, it is not always the case someone gets granted it. The Scottish Welfare Fund was set up to assist with household items to people that have nothing to start with, again not everyone gets granted this or only get some of the items that they applied for plus the wait for these items can be 3 weeks or longer, again this can be fast-tracked but doesn't happen all of the time.

We are looking to get a storage space so that we can move people on quicker, we would be able to accept more donations saving people having to go to the dump with their items that could help someone. We are freeing up beds faster in services, reducing DHB and Scottish Welfare Fund applications and giving people the start they need to succeed in their own homes.

Any help is much appreciated.

Team HTHG