B&M Waste Services have joined numerous other Liverpool city region businesses in signing the LCR Homelessness Charter. This drive urges other private sector businesses to do their bit in achieving B&M Waste’s nominated charity Crisis aim, to ‘End Homelessness’.
The launch of the charter took place with the aim of encouraging a minimum of 200 businesses across the region sign up to the pledge. The charter suggest ways that businesses, no matter their size or industry can make practical steps to help the homeless community
Starting in January, ‘Charter Champion’ David Curtis, Director at B&M Waste, will learn more about the causes of homelessness and the issues people face on a training day hosted by Crisis. The aim then is to disseminate this back to the 280 B&M Waste staff to raise the business’ awareness of the issues surrounding homelessness.
A UK first of its kind, the Homelessness Business Charter has been created with the Community Foundation for Merseyside (CFLM) and Liverpool Parish Church to help people out of homelessness. One of its aims is to help change public attitudes to the problem by communicating its complex causes.
Delegates also heard the compelling lived experience of Karl Smith, who told of his hardship and struggle to escape living on the street.
David Curtis, Director at B&M Waste Services said “236,000 people in Britain experience the worst forms of homelessness. Sadly it’s not always something that happens to ‘someone else’ and the scale of the problem is immense. The business community in the Liverpool City Region is determined to help the public and voluntary sector to tackle this issue, and we are proud to be one of the first to sign the charter with a pledge to help in as many ways we can. We urge other businesses to follow suit”
Jayne Kennedy, Senior Marketing and Social Value Manager said “The statistics on the number of homeless people dying are truly shocking, not just in Liverpool City Region, but across the whole of the UK. Listening to Karl Smith, who talked of his personal experience of homelessness, and help he’d received from Crisis was both heart-breaking and inspirational. Simply a smile and a chat can help those sleeping rough, but there’s much more we can do to help as a business in the region.”
B&M Waste have worked on their ‘Refuse not Refuge’ campaign with Crisis to get the message out to the homeless community that sleeping in a bin when sleeping rough is a potentially life-limiting choice. They continue to provide both recruitment opportunities to those looking to get back on their feet, as well and volunteers for Crisis member events and funding for the charity.
The event talked about the amazing work the councils, charities and other local organisations are doing individually, and now joining up the dots with involvement of businesses across the region, means this collaboration might just have an impact in achieving the Crisis goal that ‘Together we can end homelessness’ .
