So who's eligible for an FVA boat and what do you get?

The short answer - you have be a British Armed Forces veteran, and either homeless (that includes sofa surfing) or in imminent danger of being made homeless, AND - this is important - under the care of a recognised armed forces charity. You will be loaned - not given, you have to give it back, a warm, dry, safe, legal boat, for initially 12 months, to help you get back on your feet. We don't charge you rent but we do ask that you put fuel in the boat, license it and if you are in a marina, pay the mooring fees - the last two, DWP and local authorities will pay if you're out of work. And that's a good deal - read on and see why.

The long answer - As you might imagine, lots of people like the idea of living on a narrowboat  - they see TV shows like "Canal Boat Diaries" and "Narrow Escapes" and think it looks like a great life. And it can be.

 But although it IS cheaper than bricks and mortar, you still need 10's of thousands of pounds to have somewhere decent to live. So getting a boat to live in, that's warm, dry, safe and legal, isn't cheap. 

Anyone who's been around boats will tell you, the less you pay for a boat in the 1st place, the more you'll spend keeping it afloat and making it decent to live in. For a lot of people, and definitely  if your homeless and can't get a job because of that, it's out of reach.

If you're a homeless veteran, that's where FVA comes in.

People looking to get on to a narrowboat, but with not much money, usually try to buy what's called  a "Project Boat"

Project boats are ones which need  - usually - a great deal of work needed on them. The electrics are usually shot. The plumbing doesn't work - the pumps to move the water in or out have often had it. It could have been sunk or water come in through windows, doors and the roof - so the whole of the inside, walls, floors and ceilings, have to be stripped out, thrown away, the boat dried out and it all being replace with new stuff. The hull could need welding or steel plates on it, a skilled and expensive job.  That's all before you get a bed and furnishings, something to sit on, some way of staying warm,  fit out the kitchen, heat your water.... you get the idea. That can cost  10k  or more.

Most of the boats FVA are given are project boats - so we spend that money, put in the time and the expertise.

 That's why we don't give our boats away - we have spent thousands on them and countless hours of volunteers work.  

We are fortunate to have been given 3 boats in excellent condition - worth 30k  or more of anyone's money. We're given them by incredibly generous people, who want to help as many veterans as possible.  If we give them away, if the person who is given it, decides to sell it, it'll go back into the leisure or liveaboard market - and that wasn't what the owner wanted. So that's why we loan boats, not give them away.

We don't loan people boats who have housing, but who  fancy dipping their toes in the water and have a go at living on a narrowboat.

We don't hire out boats for holidays.

We don't have "spare" boats for emergency accommodation, at the moment, but we hope to by the end of 2025.

As our boats go out for a year or more, we won't always have a boat for a veteran who a charity approaches us about - we wish we did - but doing anything to boats is a slow business and a costly one, and just because we have X number of boats, they won't all be ready to go out.

So that's what we do.

Still think we might be able to help you? Get your case worker to contact us  and if we can help, we will.