Homeless Project
Rushden Night Shelter was completed and was opened as a fully operational unit serving the homeless community in our region in March 2008.
In 2008 funding was received to set up a community cafe and drop in centre for offering support to those most vulnerable in our society and an advice and guidance centre for homelessness and housing issues.
In 2009 a food distribution and recycling ministry was added to this work to supplement our outreach into the local community.
In 2010 the night shelter project was renamed as The Sanctuary Project and a supported housing scheme called the Stepping Stones was added to our portfolio of services. This project offers up to 7 bed-sit flats in a partnership with a local landlord. Overall the humble beginnings in a renovated toilet block has now expanded to include not just a 4 bed unit, sheltered housing unit, a food and recycling unit and drop in cafe to supplement our support service for the whole homeless and vulnerable community within our society.
Click here to see graphs outling the impact of the sanctuary project
Click here for a link to the web page concerning the project.
For a powerpoint explaining the project click here
For a poster finding out how you can volunteer click here
As part of our interaction as a faith group with other agencies and bodies, we have recently joined the local council sponsored homeless families. Arising out of this contact, we have conducted a number of small surveys to help identify the need in our area. Mark Lees the development worker for ENFG has comitted his church to a project that will establish a temporary emergency homeless shelter in Rushden.
Quote by Grant Shapps MP regarding the homeless situation in our region
"One of the other things I want to do is get an honest street count because the Government says there are 462 rough sleepers in the country but anyone who knows anything about this subject knows that this is not true… I was up in Wellingborough last week with our candidate there, Peter Bone, and he introduced me to a guy called Mark Lees who got involved in his local authority, just volunteering and going along to the homelessness meetings that the officers were holding, in an area where the Government were saying there is zero street homelessness… He got so fed up of the conversation which was really all about the waiting lists and statutory homelessness, rather than the fact that he knew there was someone sleeping on a park bench, that he actually went away and said, ‘right, I’m going to set up a hostel’. Amazingly, with a faith based group in a church, he’s actually set up a homeless hostel and, low and behold, there are homeless people that are not counted by the Government’s current system. They have four hostel beds and a daytime café and it turns out that, actually, they’re doing loads of good work and there is a constant issue there and that whatever the homeless count is – it isn’t zero."
Please contact Mark Lees for more details.
This project has now grown and developed to include a community cafe a client support project, a moving on supported housing scheme and a food distribution project. All of these endeaveours seek to offer real help and support to the neediest and most vulnerable within our community threatened with homelessness.
