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CRASH, the construction industry’s charity, is proud to celebrate 20 years of giving the sector’s expertise and generosity to create environments that care for people in homelessness projects. The charity is also pleased to announce that, from 2016, it will officially expand its beneficiary base to include UK hospices, allowing CRASH to help even more people.

Two decades of fighting homelessness

Over the last 20 years, CRASH has supported homelessness charities to build and renovate shelters and hostels for the most vulnerable people in society. In its early beginnings, founder Tony Denison saw an unacceptable number of people sleeping on the streets in London while countless office buildings stood empty. With his background in construction, Tony had the skills, contacts and knowledge to galvanise the support of the sector as well as property owners to re-fit these vacant buildings as temporary shelters for homelessness charities to offer support for the homeless men and women of the capital.

Since then, more and more patron companies from the construction sector have lent their vital support to not only build temporary shelters but also to work with homelessness charities to create permanent, safe spaces for the people they help. CRASH relies entirely on the generosity of their patrons to offer a unique combination of pro bono professional expertise, building materials and cash grants to the charities they support.

The charity is commemorating its achievements to date with a publication, ‘20 Years of CRASH’, which not only reflects on its past success but also looks to the future as the charity enters its third decade

The future of CRASH: helping hospices as well as homelessness charities

CRASH announced at the end of 2015 that, as well as continuing its work for homeless people into 2016, they will be extending their services to benefit hospices as well. In the UK there are over 200 adult hospices and 40 children’s hospices looking after people with life-limiting illnesses, and many of these are in urgent need of rebuilding or refurbishment. One of CRASH’s first projects will be to rebuild St Michael’s Hospice in Hastings, which was destroyed tragically in an arson attack.

Like homelessness charities, hospices do crucial work to support people at their most vulnerable, and the environments in which they do this have a huge impact on the wellbeing of both residents and carers. CRASH is committed to expanding its beneficiary base to include hospices, to provide modern, high quality accommodation to more people in need.

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