Catching Lives saw a 21% increase in footfall in 2024 compared to the previous year. Our Day Centre footfall was 13,346 in 2024, compared to 11,040 in 2023. This figure had already increased by 22% between 2022 and 2023.
However, the number of unique clients - 517 people - was only 3% more than 2023, meaning that those who use our services are doing so for longer.
Tasmin Maitland, Chief Executive at Catching Lives, said: "The demand on our services has increased dramatically year-on-year for another year running, which shows how small charities like us are filling the gaps left by cuts to local funding and public services.
"People who come to the Day Centre are needing our services for longer, highlighting the barriers that people experiencing homelessness face in the current climate, including high rents, a desperate lack of affordable housing, and the cost of living crisis."
Graeme Solly, Manager at Catching Lives, has analysed our 2024 figures. Here are his reflections:
Our figures for 2024 indicate that people are finding it increasingly difficult to find suitable accommodation to move into, and/or that those who do find accommodation are accessing for ongoing support for longer durations.
Footfall remains fairly consistent throughout the year, with our busiest month being October (1,177 visits) and our least busy being June (1,056 visits).
While winter months can feel busiest due to the cold weather increasing urgency for many to find accommodation, the levels of support and services we provide at the day centre over summer can be just as high, for example we served more meals in July than any other month.
Demographically, we saw similar clients compared to last year with the average age dropping slightly from 42 to 40 and the number of 18-34 year olds accessing our service increased from 31% to 42%.
We saw 60% of people nine times or fewer. This is often due to someone receiving specific support to resolve an issue which means they do not need to return, such as provision of a food parcel, support with completing documents, or calls to the council for emergency accommodation. The proportion of clients visiting 10 or more times rose from 35% to 40% between 2023 and 2024.
Rough sleeping accounts for about half of our client group. We do a lot of preventative work to avoid people becoming homeless - about half of all the people we supported during 2024 were in some form of accommodation. Looking at numbers coming in regularly, we see a similar pattern of housing status. For example, taking December as a snapshot, 49% of clients who shared their housing status were sleeping rough, 15% were in temporary/insecure housing, 10% were sofa surfing and the rest were in private rented, council or supported accommodation.
With accommodation outcomes, a large proportion of people sleeping rough are still going into emergency/temporary housing as a starting point and then moving on to more settled housing (often in other areas and so these outcomes aren't known to us). When looking at all known outcomes moving from homelessness or insecure housing into settled housing, we saw that 44% went into supported accommodation, 33% went into private rented/housing associations and 23% went into council tenancies.
We also saw a 21% increase (up to 14,759 in 2024) in the meals served, showing that the support from our community, through donations and volunteering, has been as vital as ever and we thank everyone who has supported us throughout the year.
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