Eccles Breakfast Club provides free meals for the homeless

The Salford Unemployed and Community Resource Centre (SUCRC) Breakfast Club provides the homeless with a free breakfast every morning.

The centre on Liverpoo Road in Eccles opens its doors at 9am every Monday-Friday and aims to give the homeless, unemployed, ex-offenders and those in need a friendly place to enjoy a breakfast meal completely free of charge.

The Salford mycity Directory website reads: “If you live in Irlam, Eccles or Salford and are homeless, are an ex offender or earn a low income or claim benefits you are welcome to drop in for a free breakfast.

“Breakfast of cereal, fruit, or toast available, including emergency food parcels.”

SUCRC offer support services to to tackle poverty in the community.

According to their website, the organisation have been referred to as the ‘fourth emergency service’, and they offer practical solutions to issues local people face, including benefits and debt advice, education sessions and workshops on useful skills such as CV writing and confidence building.

726 homeless people died in England last year, and one seventh of these deaths were in the North West according to figures by the Office of National Statistics. SUCRC are urging the government to take these figures seriously.

Alex McFadden, the manager of SUCRC, described the homeless crisis as a ‘National disgrace and a shame in the North West which urgently needs addressing”.

He also explained that recently, he had attended seven funerals for homeless men in the Eccles area: “It’s shocking. Not one of them has been over 45.

“They die because of their living conditions, it’s as simple as that.”

Originally for ex-offenders, McFadden explained he noticed that homeless people began coming along to the Breakfast Club: “We noticed that they weren’t coming to socialise or to find things out, they were coming to stay alive.

“As this developed, some amazing people in Salford who work with homeless people also got involved with us and they recommended people came here, and we kept people alive,” he said.

Figures from the Office for National Statistics say that the average age at death for homeless men was 45 in 2018, compared to 76 for the general population.

Visit the Salford City Council page on homelessness for more information and advice.