Boomerang Cardiff started its journey as a homeless/poverty organisation, helping citizens that live on the streets who still deserve a little dignity, however the journey developed moving in different directions but still keeping its identity with regards to tackling poverty. Boomerang Cardiff has been developed with the community and volunteers, many volunteers are driven by previous lived experience of homelessness, poverty and social isolation. Following a period of falling on hard times and experiencing homelessness as a self-employed businessman, founder Paul Gwilym began to work with the local community, creating and funding the project himself.

Overview:

Under the umbrella of Boomerang Cardiff, there are four sections to the project:

• Homelessness/Prevention of Homelessness
• Poverty, In work poverty/Critical Living Conditions
• Community Engagement/Education
• Social Isolation/Loneliness

Boomerang Cardiff focus on the needs of the community from all suburbs of Cardiff and work with the community in a number of ways; as a charitable organisation we work hand in hand with the community to support/prevent homelessness, poverty, critical living conditions and social isolation. We aim to help and support local people and families that are down on their luck, quickly and efficiently, working to promote, benefit and empower the inhabitants of Cardiff without distinction of sex, sexual orientation, race or of political, religious or other opinions in a common effort to enhance living standards. Our aims are simple, to provide help to people who need it and fast.

Forms of poverty are complex, we understand the issues are UK wide, however we are a local charity for local people. In Cardiff, through dealing with groups identified as suffering ‘poverty’ and ‘in work poverty’ the knock-on effect identified ‘child poverty’ the reduction of ‘quality time’ parents spend with their children through ‘work intensity’ just to get by, ‘fuel poverty’, ‘food poverty’, and the impact of ‘critical home living conditions’. The nature of poverty has changed significantly in recent years, there has been a marked change in ‘low income working family’ groups and in addition to other people in our community who we assist, we at Boomerang Cardiff, are placing huge efforts to support them to live a socially acceptable quality of life which allows them to participate in society, enabling families to concentrate their efforts on more important things in life, helping with their physical, mental and social well-being.