East Coast charity helps homeless

By CRNS

August 25, 2008

An Edinburgh based charity set up 25 years ago to ease the plight of the homeless, is due to be spotlighted at a major conference taking place in Glasgow this week.

Bethany Christian Trust, which has seven shops in Edinburgh, one in Kirkcaldy, Fife, and one in Gullane, East Lothian, will be represented at the "More Than Furniture 08" conference to be held on Wednesday, August 27.

The conference will be hosted by The Community Recycling Network for Scotland (CRNS), the membership body for community recycling and reuse organisations across the country.

During a talk to more than 100 key figures from the Scottish furniture reuse sector, Bethany"s Manager of Business Optimisation, Emma Galloway, will outline the valuable difference her charity makes to the lives of thousands of people who are either homeless or at risk of becoming homeless. Amongst other activities, the charity has helped to furnish 856 households over the past year.

Speaking ahead of her talk on Wednesday, Emma commented: "Our aim is to relieve the suffering and meet the long-term needs of homeless and vulnerable people across Scotland, and furniture reuse is a big part of that. The scale of the task is great - nearly 95,000 people were registered as being homeless in Scotland during 2006 - 2007. Every year, more than 3,000 people sleep rough on our streets.

"In a modern, compassionate society this is not acceptable. Our job is to stop help homeless people off the streets and stop people becoming homeless in the first place. Studies have shown that this is much more likely to happen if people have a place to stay which is furnished with basics like a bed, sofa, carpets and white goods."

The conference, which will be held at the Royal Scottish Academy of Music and Drama (RSAMD), will highlight the growing demand for second-hand furniture which has increased partly due to the credit crunch, coupled with greater public understanding of the environmental benefits reuse and recycling have.

Under the banner of "Bigger, Better, Bolder", a number of key figures from the furniture reuse sector - from home and abroad - will take to the platform to speak about the projects they are involved with.

This includes projects such as the Glasgow based Maxie Richards Foundation, which helps to rehabilitate drug addicts and gets them involved in restoring second-hand furniture ready for resale. Other spotlighted projects will include Fife based Castle Furniture Project and New Start Highland.

The keynote speaker will be US recycling pioneer Eric Lombardi, who is Executive Director of Eco-Cycle, one of the largest non-profit recyclers in the world.

Newly appointed CRNS Chief Executive Pauline Hinchion commented: "Things are shaping up nicely for what is set to be our biggest conference yet, on the ever more important issue of furniture reuse.

"Furniture reuse projects are playing an increasingly pivotal role in our economy, bridging a gap in the market for low cost, perfectly decent furniture for families who are on a low income or people who are moving out of homelessness.

"Furniture reuse also offers a host of other benefits, such as stopping items being scrapped and sent to landfill, and social benefits for workers and volunteers who work on some of the projects.

"The figures speak for themselves - around 105,000 people made use of a furniture reuse project in the last year, compared with 30,000 five years ago. That means 14,000 tonnes of furniture a year that would otherwise have gone to landfill has been reused.

"Last year, 65,000 of the people who made use of the initiative were homeless or on low incomes. The other 40,000 were members of the public who opted not to go to a traditional furniture store."

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