Jacobs Employees Participate in Global Sleep Out to Help End Homelessness

For many of us, it can be hard to imagine life without a stable and safe place to live – a roof over our heads, access to regular meals and the comfort of sleeping in a bed. However, there are many people around the world who aren’t so fortunate.  

In England, for example, the number of people sleeping on the streets has increased by more than 150% since 2010¹. This year, Jacobs employees and clients have identified homelessness as one of the leading challenges faced by U.K. and Ireland cities.

To help address this global issue, more than 100 Jacobs employees from cities including Edinburgh, London, Cardiff, Manchester, Leeds and Dublin, participated in the World’s Big Sleep Out 2019. This was the flagship event of this year’s campaign, where people slept outside without a tent on a wintery night to raise awareness of and funds to help end homelessness.

Building on a relationship between teams from our Edinburgh office and local charity Social Bite, who are partners of the World's Big Sleep Out, employees from all corners of the U.K. and Ireland who wanted to get involved were encouraged to take part in one of the organized events.

“We’re committed to tackling the toughest challenges facing our cities and communities, and homelessness is most definitely one of them,” said Donald Morrison, Senior Vice President and General Manager of People & Places Solutions, Europe, Middle East and Africa. “I’m immensely proud of the teammates who have developed our partnership with Social Bite and driven the campaign internally, and of course all of our volunteers who participated.”

Major Sleep Out events were held in more than 60 cities around the globe, with funds raised going to both local charities that are working to address homelessness, and global causes via charities such as UNICEF, the Malala Fund and the Institute of Global Homelessness.

¹Figure from World’s Big Sleep Out Press Release 2019