Former Addict to live on Durham streets as part of 6 month fundraiser

A RECOVERING addict who endured homelessness before transforming his life to help others has embarked on a six-month rough sleeping challenge this weekend in a bid to raise £1 million for vital addiction recovery beds.

On Saturday (17 October), Edinburgh charity founder Richie Roncero left Hope House, the residential recovery facility run by his charity Steps to Hope in West Lothian, before beginning his challenge on the streets of Glasgow.  

The challenge has already inspired supporters to raise more than £250,000 through donations and charity challenges of their own, with Richie hoping to reach £1 million to help expand the charity's residential recovery services.

The 42-year-old dad will spend Christmas, New Year and his birthday sleeping on the streets as he travels across all four UK nations, spending seven nights in each of 26 locations without money or everyday comforts.

He plans to live-stream his experiences to help raise awareness of the realities faced by thousands of people experiencing homelessness across Britain, while raising funds to stop people “dying on waiting lists” while waiting for addiction support.

The challenge aims to fund the construction and running of five additional bedrooms at Hope House, the charity's existing ten-bed residential recovery facility, which opened in 2024.

The charity has now secured planning permission for the extension, having experienced the heartbreak of lives being lost because it doesn't have the capacity to meet the needs of those seeking support.

Richie said: “I’m doing this to raise funds so that we can build an extension onto Hope House, our ten-bedroom residential property. Now we have planning permission for a further five bedrooms.

“It’s to meet the demand for our services. We have so many people every day phoning to come in here. We are doing so many assessments and we can’t turn beds around quickly enough.

“It got to the point that people have passed away on our waiting list because we haven’t been able to get a bed quickly enough.”

Richie has begun his six-month challenge in Glasgow this weekend, before moving on to locations including London, Manchester, Durham, Dundee, Cambridge, Dunfermline, Belfast, Derry, Cardiff, Swansea, Stirling, Westminster, Newcastle, Inverness, Birmingham, Bradford, Aberdeen, Leeds, Bristol, Liverpool, Perth, Sunderland, Bath, York and Carlisle.

Between 17 October and 17 April next year, he will sleep rough every night, carrying only a sleeping bag, phone, toothbrush, and 100 information leaflets for each stop.

A previous eight-week rough sleeping challenge saw him raise £250,000, enabling Steps to Hope, which he established in 2018, to open Hope House two years ago.

But Richie admits the prospect of setting off into the coldest months of the year, for a challenge more than three times longer than his previous effort, is already taking its toll.

He said: “There’s not one bit of me that wants to do this. I’m losing sleep already, up in the middle of the night. My head is going, trying to prepare myself for six months  on concrete. It’s not safe, there’s no guarantee, no certainty, I’ll be alone and isolated.

“I’ll miss Christmas and New Year with my family, and I’ll be out on my recovery birthday when I turn 12 years sober. I’ll be out on my actual birthday as well, and I’ll be missing my daughter’s birthday too.”

He added: “I’m giving up my security and risking my mental health, putting it all on show for the world to see which is daunting. It’s hard to carry yourself and motivate yourself when you’re at low points with your mental health, and that will happen.

“But we have people dying on our waiting lists and I take calls from parents, and kids, people begging for their loved ones to get support.”

Richie, who experienced periods of homelessness during his own 16-year battle with addiction, knows first-hand the physical and mental toll that sleeping rough can take.

He added: “I was in active addiction for 16 years but I won’t be taking something that’s going to knock me out and let me get a sleep. I’ll be sleeping 20 minutes at a time, because you hear a noise, your head’s up, checking if anything’s coming. It’s exhausting.

“But Steps to Hope is my life, seven days a week. My juice comes from watching other people's lives get better and improve. I can see that magic in Hope House, I can see that getting better every single day.”