Townwatch UK travels across the UK creating a support network that is supporting vulnerable people to live better lives through real life journalism our aim is to create a public platform that can help build a better society across the UK.
Townwatch UK is working on solutions for radically reducing homelessness and the issues around it as our first mission. We have researched homelessness thoroughly both from first-hand experience and also from our volunteering experiences. We have realized our insight from our lived experiences can be highly useful.
Our results will be published once we come up with a proposed solution, but we already have 16 months of walking in the homeless community’s shoes. We will publish the journal on the posts page very soon (by October 2022) but will be raising concerns on areas of public interest in the meantime. The journal is created by our founder Vince Godwin who is a journalist with around 5+ years experience in publishing he became homeless by choice and soon discovered the full extent of the whole topic. Vince Godwin soon realized how big an issue it was in his hometown of Southend On Sea with over 150 rough sleepers, his experience serves to prove it can happen to anyone and it can make you or break you!
Townwatch UK understands that It is not all drug addicts that are rough sleepers, there are the self-employed homeless, there are the people having relationship issues, many have lost their jobs due to Covid, and people that have been released from prison with no where to go. Townwatch UK understands that People who end up on the streets the most are people that have mostly experienced trauma in their lives and end up with personality disorders or other mental health conditions, these conditions cause many of them to ‘self medicate’. Most people seem to choose these substances in the following order: Alcohol, Cannabis, followed by Crack cocaine, Heroin, and then the strange drug called “spice” which is smoked on bits of paper or herbs this drug often gets into prisons easily and is highly difficult to detect, many prisons have started photocopying mail to prevent this from happening but Townwatch UK has sources which tell us it still gets into prisons.
Townwatch UK Outreach Project
Townwatch UK actively patrol the streets and ensure any homeless people are referred to the relevant service/s, everyone is individual and some require different needs than the majority.
Townwatch UK aims to work closely with local and national charities to provide a wide support network to the community. We publish on public issues and work on the solutions to homelessness, poverty, and many other issues that are affecting communities around the UK.
We avoid publishing negative news, we prefer to focus on publishing solutions to societies problems, the ultimate aim is a better society for all whether rich or poor. Many people live sheltered lives in the UK and are lucky if they haven’t experienced such things as mental health and/or homelessness, we aim to be a voice for those that are often voiceless.
Townwatch UK welcomes anyone who feels they have anything that can contribute to our cause in any way. We encourage the public to engage with us via our contact form below or you can contact our founder: Vince Godwin directly via email: vgodwin@townwatchuk.net
Anyone with lived experiences such as homelessness, prison, or other experiences such as escaping modern-day slavery can provide highly valuable insight for others to learn from, and we welcome anyone who wishes to write about such topics from a first-hand experience.
We Support Sreetlink
we support Streetlink and add people we find to their record, by finding homeless people sleeping rough. Streetlink will always ping the relevant homeless service depending on the area and the homeless services available streetlink will contact the local charity who then send outreach teams to the homeless person that was sighted. We aim to meet peoples immediate needs wherever possible we provide food, water, and a phone to use if they need to get a message to someone.
Streetlink tells our teams to let them know to wait up to 24 hours in the same place and someone will reach out to them, so meeting their immediate needs is very important. We reach out to charities such as HARP, SVP, The one love project, and Public support
We began in Southend-On-Sea, Essex we continue to grow across the UK. We can identify real homeless people a lot easier than the average person through our combined training, research, and lived experiences. These lived experiences help us to engage with people that are rough sleeping.
Some of the services we provide
- Outreach to find and support the homeless
- Advocacy service for the vulnerable/ homelessness
- Networking for charities
- Community forum
- Non-profit real life journalism and research.
- Counselling services
- Free Charity Website listings
- watchdog for the vulnerable
- Voices for the voiceless
- Campaigns for change
Charlie boys angelsWe are Charlie boys angels. We set up after a tragic event that left a Homeless guy attacked and his dog Charlie boy. The dog, unfortunately, died from a fatal stab wound the owner luckily survived but lost his companion and was devastating
He asked us to keep the page running to help others with dogs and to find dog-friendly housing for them. and provide free vet treatment. Which we do. And has achieved in housing over 22 people. Please contact me if you hear of anyone sleeping rough in Southend with their dog.
Anyone we find homeless with a dog in southend we will refer over to you. Thankyou for doing what you do, we think its a really great service!
public support UK has teamed up with Town Watch UK working in partnership regarding Safeguarding homeless communities with signposting to the Reputable service around the UK being a voice for the voiceless giving people the tools to survive
Pubic Support UK will keep you up to date with online and offline public support services to help our public get the required support from food banks to homeless support services and much more.
get the public support app here