Earlier this year, one of the men living at Acorn House looked at an empty corner of SCT’s community garden in Shoreditch and decided to grow vegetables in it.
Antonio has shown up every day since. Watering, weeding, keeping an eye on things.
By the end of the summer the harvest was more than the house could eat. Courgettes, cucumbers, beetroot, tomatoes and squash, coming in faster than the kitchen could keep up with.
“While working in the garden during my stay in Acorn House, I found myself reflecting on childhood memories from a time when I was free from all substances and my grandmother, who raised me, was still alive. Every day, I go out and water the vegetables we are growing. This helps me feel connected to a time when my life was simpler and cleaner.”
Antonio, Acorn House
Where recovery starts
For most people we work with, it starts at Acorn House, our six-month residential programme in East London. Around sixty people a year live there while they establish their recovery from addiction and homelessness.
Six months is long enough to recover your sleep and your health, and to begin the very hard work of looking at what sits underneath an addiction. There’s counselling, housing support, the garden, a woodwork workshop and an art room. Just as important, there are other people in the house doing the same difficult thing at the same time.
Five people completed the programme this summer and moved on, either into SCT housing or with the support of another organisation.
New keys, new starts
After Acorn House, people can move on to our Move On House in Leytonstone, with the support they need. It was a good summer there.
Two of the people who have lived at the house longest now have homes of their own, through two housing nominations from L&Q. Five people at the house are volunteering across SCT shops and our social enterprises. Five more are starting college courses this autumn or are already partway through one.
The Leytonstone garden had a good summer too. Volunteers from Hackney Outdoors cleared and prepared it, and monthly sessions with our gardening tutor begin this autumn.
The thing we’re proudest of happened without anyone planning it. One of the men in the house built a large outdoor shed so that someone else would have somewhere secure to keep his mobility scooter. Nobody asked him to. As our Supported Housing Manager put it: “Community and mutual support are essential parts of recovery.” That is what it looks like in practice.
What makes it possible
None of this comes from direct government funding. It is paid for by our charity shops, our social enterprises, a small fundraising team, and by people like you.
If you’re local, you may have spotted our Second Chances campaign in the shops this summer. It’s a reminder of what a purchase actually does: it keeps clothes out of landfill and gives them a second life, and it helps fund a second chance for someone in recovery.
Thank you to everyone who came in for the half-price sale over the August bank holiday. The shops are now taking part in Second Hand September alongside hundreds of other charities, and the rails are filling with pieces for autumn and winter.
A closing note from our Chief Executive
I want to be honest about the wider picture, because you’re part of this story.
Charitable giving in the UK fell by nearly 10% last year. That is £1.4 billion less reaching good causes, and around six million fewer people giving than a decade ago (Charities Aid Foundation, UK Giving Report 2026). We cannot help everyone. We do believe every person matters, and that everyone deserves a second chance.
Just as small acts turned an empty corner into a harvest, your support is what makes that possible.
Dr Louisa Snow, Chief Executive
Be part of the next season
A bag dropped off. A purchase. A share. A standing order going out each month. Small ordinary things, done regularly, which is exactly how our garden started.
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