Discover a Cambridge you never knew through our unique walking tours, talks and activities. Our Experience Leaders make Experience Cambridge unlike anything else in town, bringing an experience and knowledge of Cambridge that can't be replicated.
Our Experience Leaders are the heart of what we do, local people with experience of homelessness, leading fun and informative tours and talks and leading conversations that challenge perceptions about homelessness and Cambridge.
our partners
How are Experience Leaders recruited and paid?
Experience Leaders are recruited from among residents at Jimmys Cambridge, a charity providing accomodation and support for people experiencing homelessness in Cambridge. Leaders are initially paid £15/hour, while in training, and then £20/hour on a zero-hour contract to allow flexiiblility and are paid for all hours spent training and preparing for tours as well for leading tours and other activities. Staff at Jimmys work with us to make sure all Leaders receive the support they need.
Is homelessness a problem in Cambridge?
Homelesssness continues to be an important issue in England. There are more than 354,000 people expriencing homelessness in England today (Shelter, Dec 2024). England has by far the highest rate of homelessness in the developed world (OECD). Cambridge is one of the most expensive and unequal cities in both the country and the world, where high rent prices and living costs mean that it is easy to struggle with rent and end up without accommodation. Rental deposits and rents are high and rising and landlords can choose between many applicants, meaning that getting back into independant accomodation can be hard. Many jobs in the local economy are not accessible to people without high levels of technical skill. While not as high a number or % of as larger cities like London, we do have hundreds of people in Cambridge experiencing homelessness every year and a number of people spend many years trying to recover from homelessness. Cambridge has a number of important charities and council projects to support people, one of the most important being our partner Jimmys, who provide the primary nightshelter in Cambridge as well as move on housing and other support. In 2023 Jimmy's helped 200 people, supporting 62 people into independant accomodation and providing over 40,000 meals. Supportive accomodation and dignified employment together can help strengthen many of the areas of life that build resilience and success, including mental and physical health, security, access to money (kind of important in life) to create a virtuous circle that make it easier to gain and retain accomodation and employment with all of the attendant benefits.
How can my company get involved?
There a number of ways your company, society, organisation or group can get involved. We do always appreciate financial donations/sponsorship. Our aim is to become entirely sustainable on traded income, however in our early days we are still very grateful for grants and sponsors to help us while we build our presence. Financial donations particularly helpful to ensure we can pay Leader's for all time spent training, researching their tours and leading talks and workshops to inform people about the lived experience in Cambridge. As we're a new enterprise we also need to get our name out there and get customers! We'd love for your organisation to become one of our champions, letting your staff and customers know about us, booking some tours and inviting our Leaders to meet your staff. If your company has any skills or connections that you think could help us in our mission we'd love to hear from you.
How can I get involved?
#1 Come on a tour! (from April 2025) #2 Join our members programme (see below) #3 Invite us to speak at your work, charity, church, school, society.. #4 Donate to our crowdfunder (coming soon) #5 Volunteer to help steward tours, sell merch, help with training or maybe some other things we can come up with together
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© Experience Cambridge CIC 2025