Catholic Chief Executives SLEEP OUT to help End Youth Homelessness

As the international community marks World Homelessness Day on Friday 10 October, chief executives from around the UK are choosing to sleep out at Wembley Stadium on Monday 13 October to raise awareness of the 80,000 young people who experience homelessness in the UK each year.

The Cardinal Hume Centre, along with Depaul UK and CEO SleepOut UK, have brought together the chief executives to raise much needed funds to support homeless people. Despite being the seventh richest country in the world, poverty and homelessness continues to increase in the UK, with one in every thousand young people experiencing homelessness each year.

Among those taking part is Canon Pat Browne, Parish Priest in Pimlico, Parliamentary Duty Priest to the Houses of Parliament and a former Private Secretary of Cardinal Hume, who is looking forward to being back in Wembley. ‘The last time I was at Wembley it was for a Simon and Garfunkel Concert. Before that it was to lead the community singing of 92,000 people before Pope St John Paul II came into the stadium in 1982. So I have played Wembley! Now I want to sleep there and raise funds for the Cardinal Hume Centre in memory of Basil - a great boss to have had! He was the inspiration for this Centre.’

Cathy Corcoran, CEO of the Cardinal Hume Centre, will be sleeping out and says, ‘Giving up one night of comfort does not compare to the hard reality for those who experience homelessness on a nightly basis, but this event will show that people do care. We all know that homelessness and poverty should not exist in the modern world.’

To sponsor Cathy Corcoran, go to https://www.justgiving.com/Cathy-Corcoran-CEOsleepout/

The Cardinal Hume Centre enables people to gain the skills they need to overcome poverty and homelessness by working with homeless young people, families at risk of homelessness and others in need.

Each year the Centre welcomes more than 1,700 people and last year it provided 437 people with housing and welfare advice, 253 people with employment support and over 400 people used the Centre’s adult learning services, such as IT skills or English language classes.

For more information visit www.cardinalhumecentre.org.uk Twitter @CardinalHumeCHC

Nationwide youth homelessness charity Depaul UK provides and supports over 125,000 bednights a year to homeless and vulnerable young people and has helped more than 60,000 people since it was founded in 1989. The charity continues to work with around 5,000 young people a year through its directly-run provision and national network of accredited Nightstop schemes. For more information visit: www.depauluk.org. Twitter: @depauluk

Photo credit: Ken Bryan, click HERE for original from Flickr

List of sleepers, as at 3 October 2014