Justlife Community Interest

Gary & Hannah Bishop moved to Manchester from Brighton in 2000 to set up and lead the Eden project in Openshaw, East Manchester. By living in the heart of the Toxteth Street estate and through their work with the community they encountered many people for whom drug and alcohol addiction were a way of life. They built relationships with a group of such people and helped them to access treatment services by providing support before, during and after treatment, using their home as a place of refuge.

Jason was one of the people they met during this time. After a long, wretched battle with heroin addiction Jason found himself in prison and after a 6-month stretch he landed back on Gary & Hannah’s doorstep looking fit and healthy, declaring himself drug-free and in search of a different life. He sought stability in all the usual ways: searching for accommodation, looking for work and finding appropriate healthcare. However, all Jason’s best efforts left him jobless, desperate and living in Gransmoor Avenue; a notorious street comprising 8 large Victorian terraced houses which are home to 40-60 drug and alcohol dependent adults. Just a few weeks later Jason was found dead after taking a heroin overdose.

Following this tragedy Gary started a daily routine of walking the few hundred metres from his house to Gransmoor Avenue at lunchtime every day to reflect on a life lost, to pray and in the hope of meeting someone who would open a door to this hostile and intimidating community. A few months later in a totally unexpected conversation with a local councillor about Gransmoor, Gary and Hannah were invited to share any suggestions they had regarding the regeneration of Gransmoor Avenue. Within a few weeks a proposal was written which involved many different partners working together to offer a new future to the current residents, to renovate the houses and keep them as a valuable part of the community’s architecture and to create a mixed community with recovery at its heart. In Autumn 2008 discussions took flight with Manchester City Council and at this point the Justlife Community Interest Company was born.

Justlife is a social enterprise which exists to raise aspirations for vulnerable adults by opening doorways to healthcare, housing and employment. The dream is that by enabling people who are so often marginalised to seek the help and support they need, their future can be very different from their past. The vision is to see Gransmoor Avenue, which was recently described by a City Council worker as the worst place in Manchester to live, de-populated as each unique individual finds health and wholeness and gathers the resources to step into the full life of freedom for which they were created.

Justlife are currently engaged in three areas of work:

1. A weekly Drop In service where residents of Gransmoor can share a meal with the team and take opportunities to share challenges and concerns about their circumstances. These conversations often result in follow-up appointments, telephone calls, and referrals to professional services. Recently a Justlife volunteer registered a middle aged man with a dentist for the first time in his life. As you can imagine the condition of his teeth was so bad that the remaining decay was entirely removed and he was fitted with a full set of pearly white dentures – what a transformation for someone who was once afraid to smile! We also introduce services directly into the sessions so that residents can see a resettlement worker or drugs worker immediately in the comfort of their own community.

2. The Justlife team believe that the long-term health & social benefits of a service like theirs are enormous and in order to demonstrate this with credibility they are currently working with Manchester Metropolitan University and the Primary Care trust to design a research pilot which will look at the challenges that people living in temporary accommodation face when accessing health and social care. The research will also highlight how locally based services can benefit the most vulnerable members of a community.

3. In the medium term Justlife hope to be the lead partner in the wholesale regeneration of Gransmoor Avenue; they plan to quite literally take the worst and make it the best. In discussions with Manchester City Council and other stakeholders, the team are trying to conquer the considerable hurdles of financing such a major undertaking, but little by little they believe they are progressing towards a new Gransmoor Avenue which will be a testimony to the power of resurrection, recovery and restoration. The vision is to facilitate the environmental regeneration of the Avenue and fill its glorious dwellings with a community of families and individuals who can support one another, and at the heart of the community will be a recovery community for 12 men and women who are leaving treatment for alcohol or drug addiction and need a stable, secure community from which to build their future.

Justlife is currently run entirely by a team of volunteers comprised of nurses, accountants, community workers, ex-drug users and alcoholics and professional project managers. There is no shortage of passion and neither is there any shortage of need for their services. Some of the challenges going forward are finding sustainable sources of income, especially for key personnel, which will enable Justlife to continue to facilitate transformation for this desolate community.

compressed Gary

Gary Bishop is the Managing Director of Justlife. He lives in Openshaw with his wife Hannah and their two children, and they are expecting a third child in February 2010. He is the author of the book ‘Darkest England and the Way Back In’ (Authentic 2008) and recently won the Independent Newspaper scholarship to study an MBA at Durham Business School. See www.justlife.org.uk for details.

Gary Bishop, 12/11/2009