Happiness Cafe tries to tackle Manchester homeless problem

The café, Two For Joy, has recently relocated to Affleck’s Palace in the Northern Quarter. With brightly coloured walls and patterned furniture, the owner Charlotte Ducie explained how her aim is to make everybody leave the café feeling happy.

With homelessness in Manchester rising and new figures revealing that one in every 200 people in the UK are homeless, Charlotte realised her café was there to make everyone happy and so decided to try and do her bit to help tackle the problem.

Charlotte explained that the café offers a pending coffee scheme: “Someone gives a pound and that will buy a tea or a coffee for a homeless person to come in, ask for a pending coffee and we will give them it. So they can come in and have somewhere warm to sit and have a drink”.

The selfless idea of having a pending coffee at the café is “building now” according to Charlotte, who explained: “People are always putting a pound in. In terms of people coming in to get them it’s definitely growing”.

Charlotte explained how the pending coffee idea is popular amongst her customers. One of her regulars, Brett Harris, stated, “I think there is a massive problem with the homelessness in Manchester and the rest of the UK at the minute, so I think for somewhere where they can come and get a hot drink, I think it’s a really good idea and I think more café’s and more chains should be inspired by it”.

After chatting to some homeless people on the street, it was clear that they are grateful for a place to be able to go to get a drink and keep warm. A homeless man in Manchester, Les, said: “Its good because there’s not many places like that.

“You get homeless centres and things like that, but its only for a certain length of time. It’s not like there, where it’s most of the day”.

https://soundcloud.com/user-114632025/homeless-man-mixdown

Charlotte said: “There a huge homeless problem you can’t go down the street without seeing at least five homeless people with no where to go, so it’s something that we can do to help”.

In these cold months, it is important to try to help those who do not have a roof over their heads. Hopefully, the happiness café will continue to put a bit of warmth into people’s lives over these winter months and will encourage others to do the same.