Moving day arrives for Birmingham YMCA
On Friday 29th October, the first of 83 self-contained flats were officially handed over to Mercian Housing Association and Birmingham YMCA allowing residents of the YMCA’s current hostel to move into much more suitable, modern accommodation. These new flats will replace the 47 single rooms with shared facilities, helping to get more formerly homeless people back on their feet at a time when the city is battling a homelessness crisis. All the new flats are completely self-contained, providing each resident with their own bathroom, shower, kitchen and living room, enabling residents to re-build both their independence and confidence.
The flats mark completion of Phase One of this multi-million pound re-development, a project developed in partnership between Mercian Housing Association and Birmingham City Council. In addition, Birmingham YMCA is still fundraising for Youth & Community phase of The Orchard which will house a nursery, multi-use community hall, youth centre, community café and meeting rooms for the local community and businesses.
Alan Fraser, CEO of Birmingham YMCA said: “This project has been five years in the planning so the completion of Phase One marks a momentous occasion, not only for the YMCA but also the city of Birmingham.
“This project will set new standards in terms of accommodation and service provision for formerly homeless people, not just in our city but across the region and country. We hope that The Orchard will be a flagship of the kind of schemes that can really make a difference to people’s lives.
“This project is going to be a place of change for people who have found themselves homeless. Our on-site Engagement Officers will help individuals deal not only with their accommodation issues, but also look at engaging them in positive activities such as volunteering, training and education, allowing them to gain the skills that will enable them to find and sustain employment.
“Both Mercian Housing Association and the Dept for Communities & Local Government (CLG) alongside a number of other sponsors have donated substantial amounts of funding to realise the YMCA’s dream. The opening of phase one marks the first stage of that, however we still want to ensure that we can provide a centre for the whole community to use. This is phase two our vision for The Orchard. CLG and many charitable trusts have been generous to us but we are still £1.3million away from our fundraising goal for phase two.”
This project would not have been possible without the hard work of all of the partners involved and Birmingham YMCA would like to thank them for helping us make this dream a reality. People can make donations to The Orchard Appeal by contacting Richard Brookes at Richard.brookes[at]birminghamymca.co.uk
