Interview: Amy Hutton, director of services at Edinburgh-based charity Cyrenians on its tie-ups with the private sector

How one charity is strengthening ties between the third and private sectors.

Amy Hutton is director of services at Cyrenians, an Edinburgh homelessness-prevention charity working across the city as well as across the Lothians, Falkirk, and the Borders. She has worked with the organisation since 2006, following several years with frontline homeless services, and it receives support from many firms in the private sector, including housebuilder Barratt Developments Scotland and fintech firm Addepar.

Can you explain the current focus and approach of Cyrenians?

We take a public health approach to tackling the causes and consequences of homelessness through learning from lived experience; by delivering targeted services that focus on prevention, early intervention, and support into a home; and by influencing changes in legislation and policy.

'It is always a pleasure to partner with amazing businesses... to make truly meaningful change that Cyrenians can’t achieve alone,' says Hutton. Picture: contributed.

We directly provide homes in our residential communities to around 70 people every year. But the vast majority of our work focuses on homelessness prevention. Last year we supported 10,800 people, meeting them where they are and supporting them towards where they want to be. We are frontline, face to face, hand in hand, day after day.

What misconceptions are there about homelessness – and to what extent has the cost-of-living crisis exacerbated it?

Many people associate homelessness with rough sleeping. After huge progress was made to all but eradicate that during the pandemic, it's devastating to see tents and sleeping bags once again becoming a prominent feature in our city centres. In many ways rough sleeping is the visible tip of a hidden iceberg of homelessness. We are in the grip of a fully-fledged housing crisis, and the numbers of households in temporary accommodation has now reached record levels.

More people have been presenting as homeless than ever before, with 29,652 cases recorded in March 2023, up 15 per cent on the previous year. The pandemic and lockdowns took a disproportionately negative toll on those already struggling, and this has been compounded by the cost-of-living crisis and spiralling housing costs.

The charity's offering includes case workers to engage with people in Edinburgh city centre. Picture: contributed.

You have a long-term collaboration with Essential Edinburgh (which works to foster the attractiveness of Edinburgh city centre), and have worked together on the Homeless Navigator project, can you give more details on this?

We have been working with Essential Edinburgh since 2018, and the partnership enables us to provide two dedicated case workers to engage with homeless people in the city centre in need of health, wellbeing, and housing support. The Homeless Navigator project has since its inception provided one-to-one support to hundreds of homeless individuals. The partnership recognises that businesses operating in the area have a stakeholder interest in ensuring that people sheltering in the doorways and streets in which they operate are met with a compassionate response, ensuring their safety and that of the wider community.

Essential Edinburgh recently extended its commitment to contribute towards the cost of the project for a further five years. It currently works on behalf of more 650 companies situated in the city-centre Business Improvement District, and many have become supporters in their own right. None of us want Edinburgh city centre to be characterised by people sleeping in doorways.

How does the private sector more broadly help your work, and can you highlight some good examples? How in turn do companies benefit from working with you?

We are inspired by the innovative ways in which the business community works with us at Cyrenians. As well as providing financial support, hundreds of employees a year take part in team volunteering experiences at Cyrenians projects, including our FareShare depot in Leith and our Walled Garden in West Lothian.

These opportunities are brilliant for teambuilding, especially for remote and hybrid workers. In the last year, volunteer groups have come together from all across Scotland and as far as the North of England to spend the day with their colleagues, together tackling the causes and consequences of homelessness.

Often, this initial chance to see Cyrenians' vital work first-hand grows into a longer-term partnership. For example, city-centre restaurant and Essential Edinburgh member Fazenda volunteers annually at our farm. They then host a competition amongst bar staff to create a cocktail using organic farm produce, with proceeds donated back to Cyrenians. National facilities-management company Mitie is another great example, and its staff refurbished a farm cottage, worth more than £10,000 of donated goods and labour, and in 2024 they will help us with an exciting project relocation.

Are you seeking more company partnerships, and if so, in which areas?

We are always thrilled to build creative collaborations to tackle homelessness together. For companies looking to support Cyrenians, we have lots of opportunities for groups to get involved in supporting us, fundraising with us, or volunteering with us. It is always a pleasure to partner with amazing businesses that offer up their skills and connections in such inventive ways to make truly meaningful change that Cyrenians can’t achieve alone. With more than 60 projects tackling homelessness in different ways, working with different groups, there really is an endless selection of opportunities for businesses to get involved with what we do.

What would you like Cyrenians to look like in 2028, the 60th anniversary of its formation?

In spring 2024, we will launch our next strategic plan. We want Scotland to be a place where people facing tough times get the support they need before they hit crisis, with homelessness prevented whenever possible. If people do become homeless, they should be supported into a home they can sustain as quickly as possible and get help with the issues that led to them becoming homeless in the first place.

We are focused on increasing our influence on policy and the depth and quality of our work rather than increasing our size, as we’ve already grown a lot in recent years. We're excited for what can be achieved to challenge social injustice in Scotland, and create a fair society where everyone has a safe and secure home and an equal chance to thrive.