New Grounds
Redefining Worth
A hybrid charity & social enterprise coffee shop that provides entrepreneurial experience, laundry and shower facilities and community connection for homeless individuals.
Duration
Apr. 2024 - Present
Achievements
Research & strategy, creative ideation, illustration & visual design, journey mapping
Hypothesis
Our project aims to redefine the worth of homeless people by changing both their self-perception and public perception. We hypothesize that by providing agency and fostering aspirations based on values rather than societal scale, we can empower homeless individuals and improve their overall standing in society, eventually leading to employment and financial independence.
Who is it for?
Our target population is homeless people and people on the brink of homelessness.
Our approach & methodology:
Our approach is deeply rooted in field research, which keeps our empathy and drive to address the problem consistently high. We thoroughly examined the entire supply chain leading up to food banks, exploring all the services and systems affecting the homeless population, whether directly or indirectly.
We volunteered with numerous organisations to learn about various policies and approaches to tackling homelessness, along with their flaws. This also allowed us to engage in ethnographic research and create meaningful connections with charity CEOs for future partnerships, opening up opportunities to speak directly to homeless individuals and allowing us to gather their stories and experiences firsthand.
Engaging with community organisers provided valuable insights into the organisational structures of charities and social enterprises. This comprehensive research ensures our initiatives are informed, empathetic, and effective in creating a meaningful and long-lasting impact, solving underlying issues as well as tackling practical problems.
Our guiding principles:
Self-sufficiency
We believe our service should not need to exist in society, therefore we enable participants to engage temporarily with our services and become financially independent.
Adaptability
We aim to anticipate and respond to emerging societal issues, proactively adapting our services to ensure we remain effective in addressing evolving challenges.
Longevity of services
Providing consistent, reliable support helps individuals transition from homelessness to stability and gradually build up trust for services.
Ease of access
Free services for people experiencing housing insecurity without unnecessary red tape.
Community Collaboration
Allowing communities to have a say in how our service is run, ensures our initiatives are driven by their needs and not our assumptions.
Empathy
Never judging, always listening, continuously learning
Our Service
What will we do?
We aim to establish a coffee shop with integrated laundrette facilities, functioning as a social enterprise with charitable status. We want to act as a business and not a charity so we don’t need to rely on retention of the issue for our organisation to survive and gain funding. We also want to design and work with other charities to help solve the problem whilst propping their services up, rather than be in competition with them for charitable funding and resources.
Our approach follows a three-tiered strategy, starting from a grassroots level to address the underlying causes of homelessness and stigmatisation, fostering a culture of empowerment and self-sufficiency.
The First Tier - Dignity Through Cleanliness:
Providing access to essential hygiene services helps improve ill health, both mentally and physically, improves self-esteem, and helps ease the stigma associated with homelessness.
Improving personal hygiene provides a sense of normality within a stressful lifestyle making it easier for people to prepare for job interviews and appointments, and take positive steps towards a brighter future. Feeling refreshed and clean is proven to improve self-worth, empowering individuals with the motivation and confidence to create new connections within communities.
The Second Tier - Connection Through Communication:
Placing our clients into small volunteering roles such as serving coffee and food at tables, gradually eases them back into a normal and healthy environment. We will introduce small conversation starter touchpoints, like quirky name tags and menus, to facilitate professional interactions with the public building up a rapport.
This approach will help them gradually integrate into a welcoming environment, eventually becoming a well-recognised and permanent fixture within the cafe. Additionally, we plan to introduce ticketed storytelling events as a platform for them to share their experiences, further establishing their presence and connection within the community and preparing them for the third tier.
The Third Tier - Integration Through Opportunity:
Our service will incorporate a professional barista service, providing teas and coffees to the public. Through this, we will offer free training for people experiencing housing insecurity aiding their integration into the job market. By creating a professional connection between homeless individuals and the public, we build positive rapport and further ease stigma. This will also create a continuous revenue stream for the cafe, enabling the organisation to continue and to grow, building up a much-needed trust between institutions and people experiencing housing insecurity.
