Spring of Hope is 10 years old this October! Over the last 10 years, the shelter has provided over 12,000 bed nights for hundreds of women in Bristol, offering them a place of refuge and safety. This was what one women had to say about her stay.

Since March 2020, Spring of Hope has not been able to provide overnight accommodation due to government guidance that communal shelters should close.

However, the need for safe, women-only accommodation remains. *

- In Bristol, the rate of domestic abuse incidents has increased since 2019. 33% of homeless women said that their domestic abuse led to them becoming homeless.

- Homeless women tend to rely on informal, hidden arrangements to avoid rough sleeping arrangements that can place them in danger.

- The average life expectancy for a woman who sleeps rough is 43.

We are hoping to re-open Spring of Hope ASAP, in a Covid-secure, 24/7 household model, with separate rooms for women, in an all-female household.

To enable this to happen, Spring of Hope needs an increase in resources, growing to a large team of staff and 50 volunteers, with extra training, additional DBS costs, more food and practical supplies needed.

The house will provide a place of safety for homeless women,

and will be the first step along their housing journey. Alongside professional services (e.g. Social Services, Healthcare, Housing) who have referred the women, Spring of Hope staff and volunteers will support service users to develop life skills, gain confidence, and build self-esteem.

Opening with a 24-7 model brings additional costs-and an extra £20,000** is needed within this financial year to kit-out the house and for additional staffing costs.

Our desire is to re-open in time for winter, so that women have a warm and safe place to start to re-build their lives.

As a celebration of Spring of Hope reaching the milestone birthday of 10 years old, we are asking supporters to fundraise towards the re-opening, by doing an activity linked to the number 10! Why not:

1. Run the Bristol 10K on Sunday 19th Sept. Youll need to register here: https://www.greatrun.org/events/great-bristol-run/, and then create your own fundraising page. Let us know and we can let you have an inHope t-shirt to run in.

2. Sleep Out for 10 hours (9pm-7am) on 8th-9th October. Find out more and register here: https://inhope.uk/sleepout2021/.

3. Coffee and cake with 10 friends. Outside if the weather's nice, indoors, or virtually. Let us know if you're doing this, as we will provide you with a thank you postcard for your guests with information about Spring of Hope.

4. Give something up for 10 days. What do you think you could live without for 10 days? Examples mobile phone, car, all drinks other than water, TV and streaming, all technology.

Once you've decided what you want to do, just click the orange 'Start Fundraising' icon on the top right of this page, and create your own fundraising page that you can share on social media and with all your connections.

Fundraising contact at inHope: Sarah Luckwell, comms@inhope.uk

Happy fundraising!

* data taken from Crisis / Bristol City Council Health and Wellbeing Report / Bristol City Council Reducing Rough Sleeping Report / St Mungo's Women and Rough Sleeping Report

** any funds raised beyond £20,000 will be used in the continued running of Spring of Hope.