Celebrating 5 Years of Our Skylight Building

The Croydon Skylight has just celebrated 5 years of being open and helping people in Croydon! To mark this occasion, we held a small event for our donors and supporters to say thank you for all their support over the years. The event included tours of the centre to show the facilities we offer people in need, exhibitions of art and poetry, and demonstrations of various skills such as wood carving and cooking given by people who had experienced homelessness.

Our Skylight Director, Christine said: “This is a slightly bittersweet occasion. We’re happy that we have been able to help many people experiencing homelessness in Croydon change their lives in the past five years. But we’re also disappointed that there is still a need for our services, when we believe homelessness can and must be ended for good. We’ve seen the number of people coming in grow by 15-20 per cent in the last couple of months as well as an increase in the number of different reasons why they are seeking help. We’ve also seen an increase in members of the public wanting referrals to food banks and advice on their bills due to the ongoing cost-of-living crisis. This shows our services are still desperately required so we will keep working to help those in need.” 

The event provided a wonderful opportunity for us to showcase all the artwork our members had produced over the last few years, a lot of it in lockdown but also to reflect on challenges faced and what has been achieved which in turn helps invigorate you for the future.