Changing Lives - Walker Clusters

Changing Lives is a national charity working across multiple, often interconnected, themes including homelessness, addiction, abuse and exploitation, unemployment and involvement with the criminal justice system. They engage with over 15,000 people a year, providing person-centred, trauma-informed support.

Changing Lives delivers several projects for constituents of Newcastle East and Wallsend and this week Mark met with the team at Walker Clusters. This is an accommodation project that provides people who are almost ready for independent tenancies with a self-contained flat alongside access to support staff who provide tenancy support, budgeting advice, help accessing benefit and support pathways to move tenants on into their own longer-term accommodation.

The team helped Mark learn more about the challenges people have as they transition from challenging circumstances to a hopefully independent future. It was inspiring to see the job that this charity does; to meet the needs of people where they are and to support them in whatever they need.

It was also good to hear that the focus on fairness and caring in the Lib Dem manifesto with reforms to the benefit system and increases in housing provision were felt to be the right direction for those in need.