Charitable trust helps expand potential for homeless in Worcester

A £1,000 donation from Harrison Clark Rickerbys’ Charitable Trust (HCRCT) will be put to good use by St Paul’s Hostel in Worcester, helping homeless people access online services.

The donation, made by the firm’s senior partner Jonathan Brew and Karen Capper, consultant at Simon Jackson Solicitors (partnered with Harrison Clark Rickerbys), will be spent on new computers and on peer mentoring – current residents with some digital experience will be trained so that they can train others.

Donna King, Director of Services at the hostel, said: “A lot of our clients are excluded from digital services, like making doctors’ appointments, bidding for their housing or doing their banking, because they can’t get online. The courses help them to improve their digital skills and we have found that clients often learn better from each other than from us.”

The hostel has 46 residents but also uses various homes across Worcester as ‘move-on’ beds, to enable people to move out into the community more easily, supporting a total of 30 other people as well.

Jonathan Brew said: “I am delighted that the charitable trust could make a donation to such an excellent cause. Homelessness affects every aspect of a person’s life and computers are now central to so much that we all do every day, that a lack of skill or access in this area is a real problem.”

HCRCT makes donations to good causes across the Three Counties – recently it has given £1,000 to a young Ross-on-Wye boy for a new wheelchair, and has also given Gloucester Young Carers a donation of more than £1,400 to help the organisation keep going until March2016.