Celebrating Vital and Unprecedented Support

The level of rough sleeping continues to rise relentlessly.

In the year to December 2023 our Street Outreach Team in Nottingham identified and worked with 869 people sleeping rough – a 19 percent year-on-year increase.

However, during April, we had two golden opportunities to celebrate the remarkable, vital, and unprecedented contribution of DHP Family to our work with rough sleepers in Nottingham.

Since 2018 they have masterminded Beat The Streets, the annual one-day music festival taking place across Nottingham city centre at the end of January. Funds raised from ticket sales, bar sales and merchandising have been used in a variety of ways to house and support rough sleepers – helping to change hundreds of lives for the better. 

First we met to receive a cheque for £81,600 raised at Beat The Streets 2024. Funds raised this year will secure around a quarter of the jobs in the Nottingham Street Outreach Team which were at risk due to the impact of the cost-of-living crisis.

Then, a few days later, we marked the opening of eight new purpose-built flats for former rough sleepers in Nottingham made possible by funds raised at the event in 2023. The £89,500 raised last year was essential in enabling the £1.4m building project in Hyson Green to go ahead.

The block has been named Akins House in honour of George and Sean Akins, the directors of the Nottingham-based live music promoter.

Never before has a private business supported our work in this way or to this extent. Nearly £500,000 has been raised in total and, in 2022, Beat The Streets received appropriate national recognition by winning the Sarah Nulty Community Impact Award at the UK Festival Awards.

In naming our new accommodation Akins House we are also paying tribute to the thousands of people who have bought into George and Sean’s vision for Beat The Streets over the years and played a part in making each year’s event such a special occasion – the staff at DHP; the hundreds of bands, solo artists, technicians, stewards and administrators who so generously volunteer their time and talent; and the large and enthusiastic audiences who come along each year.

Thank you to all of them.