A Message from Our Directors

“Why is Betel Needed?”

Kent Martin

Recent government statistics on heroin use are staggering. In the Midlands, the average age of first use is 13 years old. The UK is the largest importer (per capita) of heroin among Western nations, and the drug is getting purer.

At street level, this means increasing addiction, long-term homelessness and more crime. For so many, life becomes a demoralising treadmill of jobless days and lonely nights languishing in hostels, or even sleeping rough. Thousands balance frail hopes on getting into a rehabilitation centre to rebuild their lives but the wait can be up to six months, only to find there’s no funding available.

Desperate lives need alternatives now. There are too many broken people, who need help today, than residential places available to offer them the hope of freedom and a future. The problem continues growing as funds shrink.

Betel of Britain is breaking into the vacant middle ground between hostel-dwelling and rehabilitation. Our purpose is to rescue those on the slippery slope of homelessness and addiction who want to rebuild their lives but who can’t get into overburdened, under-funded rehabs.

Betel is a safe, structured environment for making a fresh start in life. Our residents often compare it to an extended family. It’s a place where hurting people feel accepted, where they are enabled to help themselves. It’s a refuge where they can gradually rebuild self-dignity with life’s two building blocks that elude them most: meaningful relationships and meaningful work.

Betel is dedicated to continue offering hope and hospitality to the neediest men and women of Great Britain at no additional cost to government social services or families.

—Kent and Mary Alice Martin, British Directors

Kent and Mary Alice Martin, with son Ian and daughter Patricia