Homeless Night Shelter Wrap-up

The Brighton & Hove Churches' Winter Night Shelter has just completed its 18-week run from November 2014 to March 2015. Tonight, we had the Church Coordinators' final wrap-up meeting.

A total of 108 homeless men and women were referred to the Shelter by four of the city's front-line agencies that deal with the homeless on a daily basis; First Base, Project AntiFreeze, YMCA and the Crime Reduction Initiative. About half (52) of these individuals gained places in the Shelter. A total of 16 persons - including all four women - out of the 52 that entered the Shelter were subsequently provided with housing by the local authority - a great result. It is a condition of entering the Shelter programme that individuals have to engage with initiatives to improve their lot, such as attend housing or work interviews, attend addiction programmes or undertake relevant training.

At Sacred Heart Church we looked after 21 separate homeless guests during our nine-week spell, including three women.

Interestingly, this season we have seen more individuals with deep-seated problems that, in many cases, arose at an early age, whether it was mental health issues, trauma or a particularly negative experience. Also, there seems to have been more fractiousness between individuals, particularly over the Christmas and New Year holiday period. Finally, the baleful influence of 'legal highs' on the behaviour of several guests was quite evident this year. 

This was the first time that the Shelter made places available for homeless women (in previous years other specialist agencies had looked after them, or they remained on the streets) and the innovation was an undoubted success. Apart from the guests that were successfully housed, there were other examples of individuals who began to transform their lives, and, in at least one case, embraced faith. Of course, there are others who returned to the streets with little to look forward to and will revert to their addictions. But, as Tom, one of the Central Coordinators, remarked, all the guests' lives were impacted by the love and care they experienced from the Shelter volunteers and, in God's own time, and if it is His will, the love they experienced will bear fruit. Similarly, it seems to have been a common experienced that, once again, the Shelter volunteers were greatly enriched by caring for those who have so little.