Exactly. I voted "zero, but I'll pay rent" ... but I don't actually have money to pay rent and I don't live in the UK.

To answer your last point: with pledges continuing, rent can be far cheaper, without pledges rent will of course increase.
With pledges continuing in the example above, rent is only £12.50/week - that is obviously extremely cheap. Without pledges continuing, rent would be £37.50/week. So, there is no real dependence on pledges continuing past the 3 years.

Now, the main thing to consider is the above is only an example, there's definitely ways in which it could be expanded if (and only if) people are willing to support the concept. Once those first 12 are in place, additional fundraising cycles could expand the existing accommodation rather than having to seek out a whole new property.

As for other costs: I have purposely underestimated a lot here. Utilities for example will need to be funded (this would be an additional expense above rent - something quite normal), taxation may or may not be an issue depending upon the status of whatever legal entity is used to do this (whether it's a charity or a regular company).

qwert - on the subject of homeless people, that is precisely the sort of demograph this would be targeting as a priority.

The figures i've given here are definitely only an example, as-is the proposed general model. I'm definitely open to alternative suggestions and would appreciate any input from those better knowledgeable in finance and related matters.

I didn't say a house. I said a property.
There are places in wales with multiple buildings and a small private area of land (including one place with a private beach that is going for £115k).
About 3-4 buildings including a small office situated in a rural region is the kind of thing i'm talking about.

Same here, and also what about those that can't always get to the UK. :-/

There's no reason at all to only accept donations from the UK or to limit donations to particular fixed amounts.

What you're talking about is essentially a loan, which is basically what a mortage is - a big loan.
It may be possible to shorten the 3 years in my example above if more pledges were brought in or if the rent payments were made higher.

Exactly. It sounds like those horrible family vacations I don't go to any more.

Correction - do not send any money via paypal. If you do, it's at your own risk, but right now we're not using paypal at all. You'll notice that the recent donation made by skyblue1 was directly to the hosting provider, and that was for the exact reason that we've had problems with paypal.

If we were to start any sort of fundraising campaign, we would not be using paypal without very clear disclaimers to the effect of "this is at your own risk, funds might never turn up".

I seriously hope you are not implying any kind of fraud on the part of either myself or Amy, as these issues with paypal are the precise reason why we've not accepted any donations of any kind at all since those issues occurred.

I hope you did this at the time, because it would be far too late unfortunately to do anything now.