West London Day Centre - Spring Newsletter

In the category of: News.
Date posted: Monday 21 May 2012

The West London Day Centre:

Care and support for homeless people in the heart of Marylebone

Spring has arrived!

We have resumed working on our allotment in South Harrow and last month some of our homeless clients were joined by a team of area managers from Pret a Manger to finally erect the garden shed which B&Q had donated to us last year.

Tom, our Deputy Manager, has been out running in the early mornings - in preparation for the Greenwich Run to the Beat Half Marathon in October.  We've booked five places for this so if any keen runners out there want to join him and help raise money for us then please get in touch!

The day centre has been a hub of creative activity lately with lots of sewing, mosaic making and other things going on.  Some of our clients have been busy job hunting and preparing CVs on the computers recently donated by Abbott Mead Vickers. Two mosaics are currently on show in the restaurant on the 3rd floor of John Lewis on Oxford Street.

Helping people off the streets

Every night through the winter 15 of our homeless clients were staying in the Westminster Churches Winter Night Shelter.  Run by volunteers in church premises these have now closed until next winter. We're not sure yet how we got on in March but we can report that in February we also found accommodation for 27 more people.  When the temperature dropped below freezing Westminster Council opened up their emergency Severe Weather Bed provision and at least five of our clients benefitted from this. Nine more people were moved into other emergency night shelters, six people were found places in hostels, four people moved into private rented rooms, a couple of people went into hospital and one woman went to a refuge.  Six people are being supported to challenge decisions at different local authority homeless persons units and - with support from Moss, Beachley and Mullem, our local solicitors - we are hoping they'll be re-housed shortly.  We also assisted six other people to return to their homes - including some to Manchester, Birmingham and Holland.

You may already be aware that the Government recently reported a 23% increase in the numbers of people rough sleeping in the past year. Reflecting this the day centre has also experienced a significant increase in demand – particularly from a large group of Roma travellers from Romania who have been camped out in Hyde Park.

Thanks again for all your interest and support for our work.

Mark Palframan
Fundraiser
020 7569 5915

West London Day Centre     
134 - 136 Seymour Place
London W1H 1NT                                         
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Posted by: Admin on Monday 21 May 2012

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