W
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NEW COMMUNITY NIGHT SHELTER
OPENS FOR THE HOMELESS
Local homeless charity Wirral Ark has launched a new
Community Night Shelter to provide a fresh approach to
fighting the rise in rough sleeping in the area.
Using the resources and support of the Wirral community, the
winter night shelter is running for 8 weeks and is being hosted by
9 different community venues which would otherwise be empty
overnight, including Birkenhead Library, Age UK Wirral, Salvation
Army Rock Ferry Church, Christchurch Bebington, Wirral
Gateway Church, The Spire/St Luke’s Wallasey, St Michael’s and All
Angels Pensby, St Andrews Community Church/Oxton St Saviours
and The Meeting Place.
The 12 bed shelter is open between the hours of 7pm to 9am each
day providing a lifeline to the area’s growing number of rough
sleepers. Each venue is staffed by trained volunteers and is opening
its doors on a designated night as part of the 8 week project,
offering homeless people a warm welcome, comfy bed, hot meal
and breakfast.
Wirral Ark will assess and refer all guests to the Arklight project
ensuring they get the level of support they need. To date, Arklight
has provided 64 bed spaces to rough sleepers in the 3 weeks it has
been open.
Inside the venue, 12 comfy beds with matching duvets are carefully
arranged, each with its own chair, and a care package sits at the
end of each bed containing toiletries and other essentials. All of
the participating venues report that they have been overwhelmed
with donations of clothing and toiletries from churches, local
businesses, schools, Rotary groups and Girl Guides.
Volunteer, Bob Fiddaman, explains, "Arklight is about more than
providing a roof over the head of homeless people. At the heart
of the project is to provide hospitality and welcome to homeless
people which is why we refer to people who access the shelter as
‘guests’ not ‘service users’ or ‘clients’."
While guests make themselves comfortable volunteers are busy in
the kitchen making tonight’s meal of beef hot pot and a dessert of
chocolate sponge and custard. Volunteers and guests all sit together
to enjoy the meal. Later in the evening guests and volunteers sit
around and chat before lights are switched off. Volunteers stay
overnight to ensure that guests are safe before waking them in the
morning and preparing a hot breakfast.
Guest, Matt, says about the shelter: "Sometimes life is hard, too
hard to handle, but the people at (Arklight) have softened the blows
with love, respect and generosity”. This is a sentiment echoed by
Brian who has also been using the shelter after splitting with his
partner and says that getting a bed at Arklight has helped him keep
safe and out of trouble while he waits to be accommodated. Guests
say that without Arklight they would be sleeping in tents on the
waterfront."
The project is the idea of Wirral Ark and is being coordinated by
Business Development Manager, Jackie Snell. Jackie said: "Wirral
Ark is incredibly grateful to the community for stepping up and
getting involved with Arklight. We made an appeal in November
2018 for help and could never have predicted the response we’ve
received. We’ve trained over 300 volunteers and support has come
in many forms from church groups knitting hats, school children
donating toiletries, to the library opening its doors."
Wirral Ark is passionate about ending homelessness, we work to
tackle the root causes of homelessness but the fact remains that
with ever increasing numbers the current system is struggling to
cope. Arklight is a lifeline to people who fall into crisis and those
who are waiting to be housed with homeless services”.
The recent official Rough Sleeper Count which takes a snap shot of
visible rough sleeping each November showed that in 2018, Wirral
has seen a 46% rise in rough sleeping in the past 3 years. Another
driver for the project is the growing waiting lists for local homeless
services. Wirral Ark’s 27 bedroom hostel currently has a waiting
list of over 50 homeless people who are forced to use squats, sofa
surf with friends and family or sleep rough while they wait to be
accommodated.
Arklight is a pilot project, the long-term plan is to run the shelter
every winter collaborating with the community to take action on
homelessness.
For more information, please contact Jackie Snell at
[email protected].
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