Regional Homelessness Social enterprise and charity, Ferry Project, is today celebrating after being awarded almost £500,000 in National Lottery funding to support its work to provide support, love, training and accommodation to homeless people. The organization, based in Wisbech, will use the money to redevelop the second floor rooms within the Octavia View building in order to create a new ‘haven’ to enable it to provide long-term psychologically informed accommodation and trauma informed support for its residents.

Ferry Project has been running since 1999 and is staffed by 40 members of staff. It was founded by Keith Smith after he realized a need for homeless provision and support in the Wisbech and Fenland area.

The organization now supports approximately 300 homeless people a year. It provides accommodation for up to 36 homeless people, with a range of support needs, at their hostel and support base, Octavia View. This is provided through single bedrooms with en-suite facilities. Ferry Project also works with Housing Associations to deliver alternative Rough Sleeper accommodation and supported move on accommodation. This provides an additional 39 bed spaces in a range of housing types all leased from Housing Associations.

Ferry Project prides itself in providing a holistic approach to homelessness help, whereby it not only provides personalized support and accommodation for the individual that caters for their specific needs, they also provide a host of other services. These include help with training and employment, help with counselling and mental health. There is a facility for clients to access healthcare within the hostel itself and support when they need to access health care elsewhere. Access to creativity and art, including art therapy. Help with budgeting and accessing benefits. Life skills such as those provided by the Ferry Project Cookery School. With all these elements work together, they give individuals a greater chance of breaking the cycle of becoming homeless again.

The new funding, from The National Lottery Community Fund, which distributes money raised by National Lottery players for good causes and is the largest community funder in the UK, will see the substantial redevelopment of the client bedrooms on the second floor of the Octavia View building. This will become a new ‘haven’ that will be specifically for those clients who have longer term support needs. The bedrooms will include en-suite facilities as well as enhanced cooking facilities and a fire suppression system.

The funding will also fund the provision an employment officer as well as pay for a counsellor for three years. These staff will help the clients move on from the problems that led to their homelessness and help them develop the skills to enable them to find work.

Keith Smith, Founder and CEO of Ferry Project says: “ This is wonderful news. It is marvelous to see this level of investment in Wisbech. Ferry Project has already invested over £1M in improving the accommodation on offer to its clients, this National Lottery funding is the final piece to enable us to finish the redevelopment of our accommodation in Octavia View. Clients and ex-clients have been actively involved in the redevelopment plans. The funding will enable clients with enduring issues to receive support 24 hours a day, whilst  developing the skills to enable them to live independently one day. “

The National Lottery Community Fund recently launched its strategy, ‘It starts with community’, which will underpin its efforts to distribute at least £4 billion of National Lottery funding by 2030. 

As part of this, the funder has four key missions, which are to support communities to come together, be environmentally sustainable, help children and young people thrive and enable people to live healthier lives.

National Lottery players raise over £30 million a week for good causes across the UK. Thanks to them, last year (2023/24) The National Lottery Community Fund awarded over half a billion pounds (£686.3 million) of life-changing funding to communities across the UK, supporting over 13,700  projects to turn their great ideas into reality. 

To find out more visit www.TNLCommunityFund.org.uk