VIDEO: Local group hosts fundraiser to support Swindon's homeless

Homeless people in Swindon with mental health issues will benefit from a fundraising event organised by Swindon Helping Hands.

The black tie event will be held at Swindon's Meca for an evening of live entertainment, an auction and fundraiser, live music, and prosecco.

Swindon Helping Hands is a local organisation which provides provisions, such as clothes and sleeping bags, and food to Swindon's homeless whilst working alongside other charities - The Big Breakfast Club, Alternative Angels and Threshold. March's fundraiser is being organised by Helping Hands members Gemma George and her mother, Rachel George Tucker.

Although the group does not work explicitly with mental health, Miss George has experienced first-hand encounters that combines both issues which she is hoping to raise awareness of through the fundraiser in March.

Gemma explained: "In 2013 I had a call from a hospital in Reading to let me know that my brother, who I hadn’t seen for years, had been sectioned under the Mental Health Act. My family and I rallied around to give him the best support we could. After 5 long and hard months it was decided my brother was unable to live with me and my then 2 year old son, so we sought to find alternative suitable accommodation. We failed.

"There was nothing available in line with his medical needs, my brother ended up on the streets for the second time in his life, sadly resulting in drug addiction, and of course prison shortly followed.

"In 2017, after again being in prison, my brother was released but the same thing happened – no suitable housing provisions for him in line with the care that was required, drugs and then imprisonment.

"On one occasion while I was 6 months pregnant in 2015, with my second child, my brother went missing when he was with us at our family home and had a relapse. I managed to track him down in a field outside of Hungerford – he had walked there from Swindon.

"I had to go and collect him and somehow managed to persuade him that he was safe with me, and that there was no one after him. His mental health condition and the voices had led him to believe that he was in danger and was not safe, and someone was after him and would harm him. Finally he came home.

"There were days that I wasn’t sure if my brother would make it through alive, he would walk for some times over 30 miles and call me not understanding how or why he was there.

"On a typical day he has to listen to four to five voices in his head, some are friendly, some are not. He sees people and figures around him all time, often he isn’t able to distinguish what is reality and what isn’t but he is expected to sit in a crowded office and try and communicate or remember what day and time he needs to be somewhere."

Gemma praises the local charities and groups that work to tackle Swindon's homeless crisis, but believes there is a lack of a permanent and appropriate bases for Swindon's homeless to use which is why they set up in locations such as car parks and shop doorways. Unfortunately, she explained, this creates a negative stigma towards people like her brother who are living in situations beyond their control.

[embed]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5M9rX-C69hM[/embed]

All the money raised at Swindon's Meca will go towards the group's upcoming projects with local partners, in a bid to secure supported accommodation for Swindon's homeless.

For further information, and to purchase tickets, click here.