A LANDLORD who used to be an estate agent, has since begun a community interest company to help the homeless.

Mark Richmond from Woking, started a community interest company in 2012, to provide those who are homeless with unpaid community work and the skills to find full-time employment in the long-term.

Between August 3, 2020 and September 28, 2020, their company started a partnership between St Peter's Church in Bournemouth, Dorset Wildlife, the Rotary, the homeless community, neighbours of St Peter's, Bournemouth Council, the Police and local businesses.

The group renovated the three-acre park/cemetery into a new space.

Their website said: "It had suffered from anti-social behaviour and drug taking for some time as well as being very overgrown and it now looks quite different."

Several of the homeless people that they worked with to renovate the church,who were temporarily housed by the council during the pandemic are now finding themselves back on the streets.

Mr Richmond believes that this will have a detrimental effect on their wellbeing and that we are likely to see a spike in deaths in the area.

"A guy called Dave, who's a homeless guy, he was eventually put into hotel accommodation but as of the last two days will be finding himself back on the streets when he's made a massive effort, he did really well for us.

"He showed that he can work, he wants to start his own business but because of the housing situation and the ending of support for homeless people with regards to Covid, he will be back on the streets as of today."

"He’s gone on a limb to say I'm going to have a second try at life.

"I think there's quite a tough time coming ahead for them because the problem we found is as soon as you enter someone's life and if you bring hope to their lives, they've had a bit of accommodation and they're trying to do something about it.

"If you then return them to the streets, they feel lower and that is really dangerous in our opinion."

Mr Richmond believes that by returning people to this situation, the area will see more suicides and overdoses.

He said a work programme where they can get some kind of direction is vital to prevent this and pointed out how the general lack of housing supply is also affecting the area.

He believes that councils, investors and landlords need to come together to fix the issue, starting with making use of empty properties and charging fairer rent prices.