Passionate
We are passionate about our work, delivering caring and inspiring support.
Our Story
We started as Tyneside Cyrenians in 1970, a small charity running a soup kitchen, hostels and day centres for people experiencing homelessness in the North East. The work was practical and local. But over time, we started asking harder questions. Why did the same people keep coming back? Why did a roof not always mean a way forward? Why did people still feel like they were falling through the gaps?
Those questions changed how we worked. Homelessness isn’t just a housing problem with a housing solution. It’s shaped by poverty, trauma, poor health, abuse, exploitation and lack of opportunity. We built our services around that understanding.
In 2002 we began expanding, growing both what we did and where we did it. By 2013 we had become a national organisation, and we became Changing Lives: a name that reflects what we’ve always believed, that change is possible for everyone, and that our job is to walk alongside people until they find it.
Today we support around 14,000 people each year across more than 120 projects in England. One in five of our staff joined us having previously used services like ours. We’re still asking the hard questions. And we’re still here for anyone who needs us.
Our Vision
A place where everyone has the opportunity to live a safe and fulfilling life.
Our People Promise
Our PEOPLE Promise is six commitments we hold ourselves to: Passionate, Empowering, Opportunity, Positivity, Listening, Equality. They shape who we are at Changing Lives, and what someone notices in their first conversation with us.
Empowering
We empower people to make changes, face challenges and pursue their goals.
Opportunity
We pro-actively seek and give opportunities for people to develop and make positive changes in their lives.
Positivity
We strongly believe that with the right support everyone can live a positive and fulfilling life.
Listening
We actively listen so we can deliver the right services to those who need us.
Equality
We respect and actively promote an environment that is inclusive and non-discriminatory to all.
Our Purpose
We're here to provide support for people experiencing the challenges of homelessness. We know homelessness is rarely just about housing. It's shaped by poverty, poor health, trauma, abuse, exploitation, and a lack of opportunity. That's why we address the whole picture, not just part of it.
How We Work
Change is possible for everyone, and no one should have to face it alone: that’s the belief everything else here is built on. We walk alongside every person we support, not ahead of them, not at a distance, taking the time to understand what someone is dealing with before building support around them, for as long as they need it.
Long-term change doesn’t come from one organisation working in isolation. It comes from communities, partners, and local knowledge, all committed to the same places and the same goals.
Listening to the people we support and looking at what the evidence shows is how we keep adapting: to people’s needs, to the communities we work in, to the world around us. What matters is what works. We find it, build on it, and keep going.
Our Expertise
Over 55 years on the frontline has taught us what works. We build on it. When something doesn't, we challenge it and change it. That cycle shapes everything from how we design a service to how we show up in a room with policymakers.
Our staff are local people, rooted in the communities where we work. They understand the challenges facing the people we support not just professionally, but personally. That's not something you can replicate. It's something you build over decades.
That local knowledge is where our influence starts. What we learn on the ground, in a project, within our outreach teams or through a conversation that didn't go the way we expected, is what we bring to national conversations about homelessness, not the other way round.
Our published research and consultation responses cover homelessness, sexual exploitation, women in the criminal justice system, and drug and alcohol dependency, among other areas.