With a focus on helping those who at risk, suffering hardship, or in crisis, Caritas Salford’s Homelessness Service includes day centres and supported accommodation projects for those experiencing or at risk of homelessness. Their aim is to help people to rebuild their lives for the long-term.
One such project is the Cornerstone Day Centre and Morning Star hostel in Manchester – which provides 20 bed spaces for single men over 18 facing homelessness and a range of wellbeing services to promote mental health and wellbeing, enable people to access health and other support services and to take up education, training, volunteering opportunities and employment, as a means of sustaining positive housing outcomes.
With around 80 people a day accessing the centre, they provide a free breakfast, hot showers, and a range of activities, 1:1 support and advice, as well as access/signposting to other agencies.
Despite doing a wonderful job creating community impact, Caritas Salford realised that as their work went on, their property was no longer fit for purpose and needed modernising in line with a Psychologically Informed Environment approach to provide high quality facilities for people who have experienced trauma.
The charity were therefore looking for a design that maximises use of space as well as improving the standard of accommodation, but they needed help to scope out the various options and explore the relative costs and benefits of renovating the existing buildings versus a new build development on the same site.
This is when they approached LandAid for a matching opportunity for Pro Bono support.
Rosie Ashton, until recently a Director and Lead Architect at CBRE, kindly volunteered her services and provided design advice on what might be possible within the existing building, enabling the charity to move forward with their redevelopment plans and put together a proposal which Caritas Salford can use as the basis for getting support from their Trustees, the building owner and funders.
