Dodgy landlords and snow

Inn Churches’ winter shelter has been running for fifteen years, and provides beds for homeless guests in different churches around Bradford over the winter. Guests get a warm bed for the night, plus dinner and breakfast, and the charity works with each guest to get them into longer-term accommodation.

The shelter runs in a different host church in Bradford each week, with teams of volunteers from the church setting up the venue, cooking and looking after the guests. As not all of the churches are within walking distance of the city centre, transport is provided from a central location.

Clare Howarth, Relationship Manager for the winter shelter, explains,

Many of the guests we accommodate have nowhere else to turn, having found themselves without a home through a huge range of circumstances, from losing their job, serious illness or relationship breakdown, to being trafficked into the country or being a victim of modern slavery.

To have a bed for the night – particularly in the bitterness of a cold winter’s night – and to be looked after with a good meal and a listening ear, can make a world of difference, and be the first step in rebuilding their lives.

Unfortunately our opening week this year coincided with heavy snow, and staff and volunteers were unable to get to the church to open. However, Bradford operates a Cold Weather Provision scheme, which is a multi-agency partnership that provides emergency bed spaces to rough sleepers when the temperature is forecast to be below freezing, and all of our guests were able to be accommodated.

As always, our guests were from varied and diverse backgrounds. One guest, who has worked in high-powered jobs in London and Dubai for years, ended up in our shelter after he left his flat one morning to run an errand and returned to find the building boarded up with all his possessions inside. It emerged that his landlord had been engaged in some very shady dealings and had absconded, leaving his tenants unable to get into their homes.

We were really grateful to Marquis Taxis of Queesnbury for their support in transporting guests to and from the different venues for free over the winter. They were brilliantly reliable and we couldn’t have done it without them.

Over the nine weeks we opened this year, we welcomed 29 guests (from 48 referrals), with 27 guests being moved on into longer-term accommodation.

This was Clare’s first year organising the winter shelter, although she has been volunteering with one of our host venues almost since we began. Reflecting on her first year “in charge” she said,

I absolutely loved the whole experience from start to finish. It was a fantastic to see most of the guests moved on into longer-term accommodation.