Tag: homelessness

A rough night’s sleep

Over the past few weeks I’ve had a few occasions when I’ve not slept too well. I put this down to the fact that we’re soon to be moving home and that my mind has been working overtime with all the things I need to remember or to sort out around it – I am very much a planner.

However, many people have much worse sleep than I do. I have been reminded of this most mornings as on my walk to the bus stop I’ve been seeing two people sleeping on benches. One laying down under a pile of coats, the other sat upright under a coat, clutching on to a suitcase full of what I assume are their only worldly possessions. It can’t be a comfortable way to sleep but for them it must feel like what they have to do.

When I arrive at Stratford, most days I’ve been walking past between two and four people who have obviously been sleeping rough the previous evening. Some under a tent, some with signs, some still asleep, some chatting to people. Some talking to police officers, who hopefully are helping them to find somewhere a bit more comfortable.

I find it difficult to walk past without trying to help them in some way, but the sheer number of homeless people at the moment means it is simply not possible to give a spare bit of change, a sandwich or a cup of tea to everyone who you pass.

It saddens me that as a society we are not able to help those who get into these sorts of situations. However I am proud to be working for a company that is attempting to do something about the national housing crisis but it worries me that we are nowhere near to breaking the back of the problem.

The town I am from has a voluntary organisation which for the last 9 years has arranged a Winter Shelter where over the course of 12 weeks, volunteers open up a different church hall each day of the week where anyone can turn up, get something to eat, warmth and shelter for the night. It’s a truly remarkable endeavour which our town is fortunate to have.

This is something which is completely run by volunteers and funded from donations. For the last year I’ve been playing in a band with a couple of close friends. We’re hoping to raise a little bit of money to help the Winter Shelter in our own way this Christmas.

We have recorded a version of It Feels Like Christmas from the Muppet’s Christmas Carol. You can see the video we made for it here.

We are attempting to raise money for our local Winter Shelter and if you are gracious enough to check out the video and don’t dislike it, we would be grateful if you could donate a small amount on our donation page here. 

My thoughts on volunteering at a food bank

Last my team at work used half a day of our 3 day volunteering allowance to visit The Hope Centre, one of four locations of Lewisham food bank. The food bank is part of the Trussell Trust which operates across the UK. Last year, the Trust gave out over 1.3 million food supplies, representing a 13% increase on the previous financial year. This included 134,244 parcels given out in London which I can only assume includes many residents of the housing association that I work for. We’ve all heard the stats about how food bank usage has been increasing so I won’t repeat them all here but it is safe to say that actually seeing part of the operation helped to make it less abstract number and more realistic for me.

Our community investment team arranged for us to spend the morning at the Hope Centre with Carol, the manager, Gary who seemed to be her second in command and Chris whose job was to make tea and on days when the Centre is open to put their visitors at ease and to reassure them – perhaps the most vital task of them all.

During our volunteering morning, we sorted, moved and organised just over half a tonne of food. We became a well-oiled machine. We split food into different item types, loaded shopping trollies and ferried them into their “warehouse” to then sort into more specific sections – splitting Fruit Juice into Apple Juice and Orange Juice sections, for example. This makes it easier for food bank volunteers to quickly make up food parcels specific to their visitors requirements. Planning, sorting and organising turned out to be something that worked well with the skillset of our team of accountants!

The food we were sorting had been donated mainly in a three hour period when Carol and her team were in Waitrose at the weekend where they asked customers for specific donations. They can only do this every so often as the food bank is mostly staffed by volunteers with Carol being the only paid employee and only for 3 days a week. The rest of the time they rely on individual donations and volunteers to run the centres. By the time we left, the warehouse was stocked to the brim but we were saddened to hear that we were probably only looking at stocks that would last them for about 2 weeks. Each parcel given out is around 3 days’ worth of food each time. The centre is open on Wednesdays and Fridays and receives around 15-20 visitors on each of those days. Food banks are intended to provided assistance to people in crisis, rather than be relied upon regularly. People can only access these foodbanks having been referred to them with a voucher from many community sources – doctors, social workers and the citizens advice bureau being a few of those sources. There is a limit of only 4 vouchers per person or family per year. Having said that, Carol is reluctant to turn away anyone in need and will offer a small parcel and advice on how to get vouchers to anyone who turns up without one.

During a tea break Carol, Gary and Chris spoke to us about the way that the centre interacts with political candidates. They are happy to talk with anyone provided no photographers or film crews are present and they feel very passionately about the “unintended consequences” of political choices that have been made over the last decade or so. We can only hope that some of these consequences are dealt with as it doesn’t seem right that so many people in this country have to rely on the kindness of strangers in order to put some food on their table. They mentioned that there have been small victories – such as the waiting time for universal credit being reduced to 5 weeks – but it still isn’t enough for many people and the impact of this is something that our housing association may see in the future in the impact on our rental arrears.

Most supermarkets have food bank bins and it doesn’t take a lot to drop something in their once you have completed your shop – especially as many of the items they require cost under a pound. Please do check out a list of things they need and things they don’t need before doing so though, as there are only certain non-perishable items that they can supply. This can be found near to the bins or on their website. From what we saw in Lewisham, they almost certainly don’t need any more pasta for quite a while! They will probably need many other items that you wouldn’t normally think of.

Carol mentioned to us that after the Ken Loach’s film I, Daniel Blake was released they have actually been so overrun with sanitary products that they have actually donated them on to local schools. It is interesting to note that he continues to have an impact on our social attitudes over 50 years after Cathy Come Home came out.

If you and your team are looking for a team building exercise that will also give you an insight into the hardships that many across the country have to endure, then I heartily recommend looking into volunteering at a food bank.