Donate to our Christmas Appeal

Over 2,400 people are forced to sleep rough on a single night in the UK. This means that too many of our neighbours are facing a cold and lonely Christmas. And these numbers do not take into account the thousands more who will spend Christmas in temporary or unsafe accommodation, many far away from their families and friends.

But you can share God's love with someone in need this Christmas, by sending a donation to Church Urban Fund. Together with churches, partner organisations, and local communities, we are building a future where every person in need has access to love, support and care when they need it most.

This Christmas, your donation could help people in need to feel safe and find support. You could help a neighbour to connect with caring volunteers, and a safe, supportive community where they can recover and move forward with their life.

Please help open the door to hope with a gift this Christmas.

More than shelter

CUF provides personal, one-to-one support for people in need. This means we don't just provide shelter, but a supportive and caring community that helps people feel connected and loved. This personal support can include immediate needs like clothing and food, but also access to professional support and someone to talk to when things are difficult.

CUF's work is led and carried out by local people who know the unique challenges facing their community. Often, they are people who have survived homelessness, poverty and loneliness themselves.

Local volunteers provide reliable and caring support, supporting their neighbours to grow in confidence and reconnect with their community. This is essential to recovery over the long-term. But we can't keep this life-changing support going without your support.

Give this Christmas

Supporting people like Joe

After his mother died, Joe was left without a support network. “That was the life-changing moment where I just ended up homeless."
“My mum died and slowly everybody moved away.”

“Then the atmosphere [in the neighbourhood] was getting very extreme and intolerant of different cultures. Even though I lived here
for 20 years, it didn’t feel like my home.”

Shelter is just one of the things that homelessness took from Joe, before it destroyed his relationships, health, and self-esteem. There were times when Joe had no-one to talk to, nothing to eat, and it felt like he had no place to belong. Hunger and rough-sleeping were heart-breaking for Joe, but feeling invisible and alone was worse.

“They were all saying, ‘No, we haven’t got a place for you.’”

“When you’re homeless, people invariably just walk straight past you. They don’t even acknowledge your existence.”

If we’re going to end poverty and homelessness, we have to remove the stigma around it. We have to talk about it. And we have to be prepared to act.

In his darkest moments, Joe relied on the support delivered through CUF’s Positive Pathways programme – receiving the personal care he needed to process what was happening to him and find long-term solutions.

“When I found them, that’s when my life changed.”

“[The volunteers] helped me so much with everything I needed, whether it be information about housing...getting breakfast and dinner...somebody to talk to.”

“The human interaction...it was invaluable to me. It really did put me back on my feet.”

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