A CHARITY trying to set up a scheme in York for homeless people to help themselves today set out to find a home itself.

The Emmaus movement, which is backed by former Beirut hostage Terry Waite, establishes communities for the homeless that offer not just a bed and food, but a whole way of life.

In York, an action group has been formed to set up a community, and it now faces the task of finding somewhere suitable to base it.

Emmaus communities support themselves through organised trading, such as the collection and resale of household goods and bric-a-brac, and the refurbishment and repair of furniture, bicycles and electrical goods.

Findlay Cook, a spokesman for York Emmaus Action, said: "We need to know of any premises that we could use to house a community of about five to 10 homeless people. It would be both a working and a living space, and would need to be able to accommodate a workshop."

He said the action committee wanted to ensure it retained public support after a similar scheme in Scarborough fell through because of a lack of interest.

A York Emmaus community would be the seventh in the UK, after Coventry, Belfast, Brighton, Dover and Greenwich, London. The first was set up in Cambridge in 1992.

Iain Mackechnie-Jarvis, director of Emmaus UK, said: "Emmaus can offer a positive way forward for people to come out of homelessness. When they are in the Emmaus community, they work to make it self-supporting and, at the same time, they get on-the-job training.

"They find self-respect because they are doing it for themselves."

He said York could be compared to Cambridge, where the homeless problem had grown on the back of tourism. Brd Coady Weekes, of York Carecent, said there was great enthusiasm for setting up a York Emmaus community.

The next public meeting of York Emmaus Action is next Wednesday, at 7pm, at The Ruins, 22 Dale Street, York.

Anyone who could offer support for an Emmaus project in York should contact the Fairer World shop, at 84 Gillygate, York, YO3 7EQ, telephone 01904 655116, or to write to Brd Coady Weekes at the same address.

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