Brokers brave the cold to highlight homeless plight
THE team at The Buy To Let Broker in Southport will be taking to the streets tomorrow for a “sleep out” to help the homeless.
The night, on Friday, November 30, sleeping rough is in aid of End Youth Homelessness, a charity that aims to get young people off the streets and into work.
Matt Hardman, who founded The Buy To Let Broker, will be taking part - and hopes the team will learn from the experience.
Matt said: “It’s for a charity called End Youth Homelessness, they’re basically an umbrella charity who filter their money out to various good causes to get young people off the street.
“The event itself is a national event, there’s around 13 mortgage intermediaries and lenders across the UK who are involved in it and as a firm we think this this is a great thing to be involved with.
“We arrange buy to let mortgages for landlords, who in turn provide housing stock for the private rental sector, council housing, universities and shared homes, but with this charity event we are doing our little bit to assist young homeless people.
“It’s the first time we’ve done anything like this, it might be the last time!
“No, in all seriousness it’s a great thing to do, it’s likely to give us an appreciation of what people like this go through at this time of year so yes, it’s about raising money, but it’s also about giving us all further impetus to do more things like this in the future.”
There are currently 12 people from The Buy To Let Broker signed up for the sleep out, but there is plenty of room for more to join in or sponsor.
Matt said: “We’re still happy for more people to join us, at the moment there’s 12 but I’ve had some phone calls yesterday asking to join from contacts we have, and we have people coming in all the time to our office so we’ll be mentioning it and seeing if they want to join the sleep out or pay up!
“We’re asking our clients to put some money in over the next few weeks in the lead up to Christmas, we’ll certainly still take sponsorship money after we’ve done it too. We want to raise a substantial amount and help make a difference – we’ve just broken the £1000 barrier today.”
Matthew Rowne, director, is also taking part; “There are many reasons that force young people into homelessness, but End Youth Homelessness try to turn lives around.
“According to the charity, large numbers of teenagers and young adults are affected, sadly. It could be that their parents abused them, it could be that there are drugs in the home or domestic violence – those affected could end up on a sofa at a friends’ place for a period of time, but after a while those options diminish.
“There were 86,000 people in the UK last year alone, who were estimated to have contacted local councils and either been in threat of being made homeless or were on the street themselves.
“But whatever the root cause, we need to help people get back on their feet and start over”
“The money raised goes to people and places who house those in desperate need. This gives them a safe place to stay, there are health nurses to look out for them and often training and skills workshops that help those affected get back into work.
“It’s giving people the chance to get themselves off the streets and allows them to get their lives back on track, it’s a fantastic cause.”
For more information on sponsorship or to join the sleep out, email Matt Hardman on matt@thebuytoletbroker.co.uk or donate at www.justgiving. com/fundraising/thebuy-to-let-broker