The Mayor of Wandsworth, Councillor Jeremy Ambache, will open a knitting fundraiser at the Crisis charity shop on Putney High Street this Sunday afternoon. Locals are invited to come in, knit scarves, hats, socks or mittens, and be sponsored for the items they make. The finished pieces will be given to people experiencing homelessness; the sponsorship money will support the national charity’s work helping people leave homelessness behind.
The event runs from 2pm on Sunday 17 May at the Crisis shop at 97 Putney High Street, SW15 1SS. Beginners are welcome – the format is a drop-in, not a course – and anyone who wants to take part can register an interest with the shop directly or simply turn up.
Crisis runs seventeen ‘Shop from Crisis’ stores across London. The Putney shop opened in 2024 and sells donated clothes, books, vinyl, homeware and other preloved items, with all proceeds going to the charity’s frontline work. It also takes donations during opening hours.
Ambache, Labour councillor for West Putney, has held the mayoralty since May 2025: his second time in the role. The mayoralty passes to a new appointee at Wandsworth Council’s Annual Meeting on Wednesday 27 May, ten days after Sunday’s event. The outcome of that meeting will be the first formal civic appointment under the new Conservative-led administration confirmed this week.
Realities of homelessness
Crisis published research in 2023, based on interviews with 157 people who had slept rough in the previous two years, that makes for stark reading. Nine out of ten had experienced violence, abuse or theft while on the streets. More than half had been physically attacked. Three quarters had had their belongings stolen. In 70% of the 738 incidents recorded by participants, the perpetrator was not another rough sleeper or a criminal, but an ordinary member of the public. Nearly two thirds said they had been afraid for their lives or thought they might die.
The report also found that people who die while homeless do so young: the mean age at death is 45 for men and 43 for women.
Homelessness at this level rarely begins with personal failure. The research found that participants had experienced an average of eight separate issues before ending up on the streets, and that the single biggest driver was structural: the unaffordability of private renting. Seven out of ten named the prohibitive cost of securing private accommodation as the reason they had no choice but to sleep rough.
The full report — “I always kept one eye open”: The experiences and impacts of sleeping rough — is available on the Crisis website. Locally, Wandsworth Council spent £37 million on homelessness in 2024–25, with nearly 4,000 children in the borough living in temporary accommodation as of November last year.
The Crisis shop welcomes donations of preloved items during opening hours and is contactable directly through the Putney High Street premises.
