To fundraise for Crawley Open House's 'Hundred for the Homeless' project I have set myself a pretty tough challenge - to photograph 100 hundred favourite places and landmarks within Crawley, during May. I will then collate the images on my website.

I need your help - please let me know what you would like me to include; a bench in Tilgate where your husband proposed, the pub where you met your wife, a bus stop in Broadfield where you used to catch a bus to school, the street sign of your road, a playpark where you take your grand children or maybe your favourite cafe.  I will try my best to capture them all until I reach 100.

This is the reason why I am doing this: Crawley Open House is a local independent charity who have served the homeless and vulnerable for 26 years. Today they run a 24 bed high-support hostel, 4 move-on houses with 20 residents, a drop-in day centre, a crisis food parcels service and a community outreach team. No-one locally does more on the front-line to look after those who find themselves homeless or disadvantaged. 

The average length of stay in the hostel is 6-7 weeks. During that time staff work closely with residents and partner agencies to address some of the issues which made them homeless in the first place – maybe the debt, mental health issues, unemployment, trauma, addiction, relationship crisis, physical health problems or lack of life skills, for example. They manage to resettle around 60% of them to somewhere more permanent and appropriate.

They have remained open throughout the Coronavirus crisis, with a full hostel, 4 full move-on houses and almost 100 people temporarily accommodated locally by Mid Sussex, Horsham and Crawley Councils. Whilst costs and workload have increased it has been harder to raise funds and accept donations as a result of the pandemic, a lack of community events and the damaged local economy. Any
donations towards their vital work through the ‘Hundred For The Homeless’ campaign will therefore be massively appreciated.

They can only do what they do because of the support of the generous community around us, which is why they need our help this May.