HOMELESS, addicted to drugs, or alcohol, feeling down and don't know where to turn?

If you lived in Cambridge and felt like that, you'd go straight to the Emmaus and get a life.

It's a community where people live and work, running small businesses, like farming or repairing bikes, and earn a living to pay their own way.

Now a group of local entrepreneurs are planning to set up a similar commune in Preston to help some of Lancashire's homeless back on their feet.

But first they went to see for themselves how these schemes - that sound too good to be true - actually work. And I went along to Cambridge to Britain's first Emmaus, set up in 1992, which now has 15 'companions'.

Among those we met was 30-year-old John, a former heroin addict who joined Emmaus last year: "I needed a change in my life," he said: "Luckily they had a place for me.

"It's a fantastic set-up, we are all one big family. I honestly believe that if I hadn't have joined then, I probably would be dead now."

But you don't have to be addicted to drugs to benefit, as Paul Bain, leader of the Cambridge site, explained: "It is not a re-habilitation centre, it is a family environment, we trust one another and work together.

"And it has taken a lot of hard work to get where we are," he added.

Now the steering group face the struggle to set up a similar scheme in this area. They are currently looking for a suitable site and are putting together a Lottery application.

Next year they hope to start building with a view to launching in the year 2000.They are always looking for help, call them on 01995-640255 to find out what you can do.

Converted for the new archive on 14 July 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.