Lancaster District Street Aid
It's your choice: loose change or real change?
Lancaster District Street Aid helps former rough sleepers stay off the streets for good by funding essential and useful items which help people maintain tenancies and improve their lives.
By supporting Street Aid, local people have a cashless way of making a real change and as an alternative to offering money on the street – which is often used to feed drug or alcohol dependency even among those in supported housing with specialist health services.
“Having the travel vouchers made it possible for me to get to my hospital appointments … Street Aid not only improved my life – it significantly changed it for the good.”
Initiated by Lancaster City Council, Lancaster Business Improvement District, Lancaster & Morecambe Police and LDCVS, Street Aid helps the public show support for people who are determined to stay off the streets and turn their lives around.
As one man who benefitted in 2022 explained, “me and my family were in a very hard situation and this helped a lot. Sometimes people fall on hard times and to have this service helps people feel normal.”
Support workers in local assistance organisations apply to Street Aid on behalf of people they work with, explaining what the individual needs and how it will help. Grants are paid to the supporting organisation and spent on the agreed goods and services.
Over £10,000 granted to date has funded training courses to help people get back to work in their former careers, travel passes to ease access to work and hobbies, replacement identification documents needed to gain tenancies and employment, and household essentials such as mattresses, freezers, dryers and carpets.
Creating a more comfortable home and a more meaningful life is an effective way of helping people stay away from the streets.
As well as online donations, you can give £3 now by texting STREET to 70450 (texts cost £3 plus your standard network message rate), or by using contactless terminals at:
- Dalton Square Pharmacy (Lancaster),
- The Cornerstone (Sulyard Street, Lancaster)
- Lancaster Town Hall Customer Service Point
- Citizens Advice North Lancashire (George Street, Lancaster and Queen Street, Morecambe),
- Morecambe Festival Market,
- Morecambe Town Hall Customer Service Point,
Support organisations interested in accessing Street Aid grants on behalf of their service users can find guidance and a link to the application form on our Funding Opportunities page.
