The Manna Society works with the Robes project - visit the Robes website for more information

2006-07 Report by Nikki Jones (2006-07 Project Co-ordinator)

The ROBES project opened on 4th February 2007 with a worship attended by many of the volunteers, along with Simon Hughes MP and the Bishop of Woolwich. The project is an ecumenical cold-weather night shelter running in South London in February and March 2007.

It has been a great success and we would like to thank everyone involved for their continued support. 34 people have stayed at the churches and 21 people have been placed in secure accomodation.

The Churches

The churches that we are using for the shelter are:

• Christchurch, Blackfriars;
• St Matthews, the Elephant and Castle;
• Monnow Road Baptist Church;
• St Mark’s, Kennington;
• Peckham Methodist;
• St John the Divine, Kennington;
• Bermondsey Central Hall.

In addition to these churches, Southwark Cathedral has been very involved, donating funds, clothes, toiletries and volunteers. We have also had donations from other churches, including Winners Chapel, St Anne’s Church Thorburn Square, Most Holy Trinity Roman Catholic Church, Dockhead. Local Scouts also collected toiletries.

Each evening the project hosted 10 guests, referred from The Manna Centre. The reasons for their homelessness vary, but a large amount are due to relationship breakdowns and family problems. Other reasons are evictions, either due to rent arrears or properties being sold, threatening behaviour from neighbours, leaving prison or hospital and the long term homeless. The amount of time that our guests have been homeless varies from 2 days to 4 years.

All guests will have a maximum stay of 14 days. After this time those in the first category will have a review with one of the advice workers at the Manna who will decide if it is appropriate for them to have an extension of up to 14 days. The hard cases will not be offered this as we are acting as a respite for them rather than a tool to help them move on.

The shelter, along with the Manna centre, has helped the guests in many varied ways. For those who already have jobs it provides a regular place to sleep and eat to prepare themselves for work. For those that don’t it provides shelter and help with the obstacles they face to be rehoused and integrated back in to society. As all cases are different, so are these obstacles, but a few are: help with benefits; job seeking; literacy needs; substance abuse rehabilitation; mental health assessments; obtaining appropriate ID.

The nightly routine

The volunteers arrive at about 6.30pm for the evening shift. They get the hall ready, start to prepare the evening meal and check which guests they are expecting this evening. Guests are let in from 7.30pm, though they tend to arrive earlier! They set up their beds, help to set up the dinner tables and have a cup of tea and a chat with the volunteers.

Dinner is served at 8.30pm, and much of the time the guests bring the volunteers the food. We all eat together and the guests help to clear away after dinner. Many volunteers noted how helpful and polite the guests are, always making sure that they assist the volunteers where possible and making sure that they thank them after the meal.

After dinner we all sit together and chat, read the papers, play board games and watch films. The evening shift arrives at 9.30 to take over and lights out is 10.30pm, though most of the guests are in bed before this. The evening shift make sure that everything goes smoothly through the night and wake guests up at 6.30am, at which time the morning shift arrives. We then have breakfast together before the guests leave at around 7.45. The morning shift then cleans the hall before heading out to begin their day.

How did it go?

Reports from both guests and volunteers have been positive. Volunteers have expressed surprise at both the politeness and appearance of guests, one saying ‘they don’t look homeless, they’re so clean’! They have also said that they have gained an enormous sense of satisfaction from the project and wish that they could do more shifts. The guests have expressed great thanks for the project, commenting on how lovely the volunteers are, how much at home they feel and how wonderful the food is, one guests even claims to have put on half a stone since the beginning of the project! As we have the same guests every night we are able to build a relationship with them, which enables us to help them in the most effective manner, and heightens our joy when they are successfully housed.

From my point of view as the project coordinator it has been a most exciting and fulfilling time. The hours are longer than expected at first but that is overridden by the heartfelt appreciation of the guests, how much I enjoy spending time with them and the compete sense of happiness I feel for them once they are housed.

I am deeply grateful to all of you for your generous donations of time, money and supplies. This project would not work without the generosity of you and others like you. It has been more successful than any of us could have hoped. I sincerely hope that it will continue next year and grow to be an even bigger success.