COVENTRY MESSAGE BOARD

Volunteers are urgently needed to help to run a winter night shelter for Coventry’s homeless.



The project – run by faith groups and the City Council – will begin in mid-January and will provide rough sleepers with support, food, and a safe place to stay out of the cold.

Nobby Clarke, project coordinator for the night shelter, said: “Rather than sympathising with people who are out on the streets, here is a chance to actually do something to prevent people from having to sleep rough.

“If a person is on the street and we have really freezing weather there is a risk that somebody will die.

“As a society, I think we should do something to help people sort their lives out for the future. It would be amazing if by the end of the project nobody was coming anymore.”

The night shelter will be open every night, with rough sleepers being looked after in a different city centre church each night of the week until March 31.

Volunteers will work in three shifts on their preferred week night, but work will be flexible.

From about 7pm until about 10pm, helpers will welcome the night’s visitors, cook dinner, and sit and talk with the rough sleepers.

A new set of volunteers will stay at the shelter overnight as overseers before another group takes over to serve tea and toast between 7am and 9am.

The project will need 10 volunteers each night of the week, so a total of 70 people will be needed to help out.

Nobby said: “Without volunteers, the night shelters won’t happen.

“We don’t need DBS checks, but we will need each applicant to provide us with two referees. They don’t have to commit to a particular night every single week, any help at all would be appreciated.

“Volunteers at similar schemes love it. We’ll have a lot of fun – why shouldn’t there be a feel good factor to it all?”

Faith communities have already helped with some food costs, but much more money is needed for the project.

It costs £25 per night to put up a rough sleeper in the shelter.

The Bishop of Coventry, Christopher Cocksworth, said: “It is a tall order to get it up and running but we believe that we are under God’s orders and along with St Paul we believe that ‘The One who calls us is faithful, and he will do this’.”

• To donate to the fund, please make cheques payable to Hope Coventry at Queens Road Baptist Church, CV1 3EG or e-mail. To apply to volunteer, please email Coventrywinternightshelter@gmail.com

Bishop gives support to Coventry Winter Night Shelter volunteers


The Bishop of Coventry, the Rt Rev Christopher Cocksworth, and Nobby Clarke speak to volunteers about the Winter Night Shelter scheme

Volunteers have started training ahead of their first shifts at Coventry’s new Winter Night Shelter, which opens this weekend.

Some of the 200 volunteers who have signed up were joined by the Bishop of Coventry, the Rt Rev Christopher Cocksworth, for a morning presentation at the Welcome Centre.

Bishop Christopher said: “I’ve come down here today to try to support the volunteers.

“There’s a very serious need here, and this training session is about making the volunteers really responsible helpers.

“I think we’ve had so many people signing up to help because we put the call out for volunteers at Christmas, and that’s a time of year when people remember that Jesus was homeless.

“It’s winter, and it’s getting cold and we all know that people die out on the streets in freezing weather.

“I also think people wanted to get involved because we have found a model which helps people to deal with a really serious problem.

“The volunteers think, ‘I can give a few hours of my time once a week, and work at the same time without using up all my free time in the evenings’.”

Night Shelter co-ordinator Nobby Clarke invited along Pete Wayman, a senior support worker for Hope 4 Rugby, a very similar night shelter that was opened in 2010.

Offering advice to the volunteers that will man the night shelter at one of the seven churches involved in the project each week, Pete said: “These people are not all homeless because of their own fault, for most it’s the result of a series of events.

“It only takes one event for a crisis to occur that finishes with your whole world collapsing – that’s when you find yourself homeless.”

And he told his own story, describing how he had “lost everything” after migrating to New Zealand, returning to London with barely any money and desperate for support.

Styvechale resident Nicholas Lepoidevin, 54, is one of the volunteers.

He said: “The idea was put forward through my church. It just seemed like a very worthwhile cause, and fits easily into my life.”

Sheila Shields, a support worker from Coundon, added: “Years ago, I blamed homeless people themselves for their situation. Now, I realise that there but for the grace of God, go I. I’ve wanted to help for some time – that’s why I’m here.”

HOW YOU CAN HELP

If you would like to donate money to keep the night shelter running up until late March, please make cheques payable to Hope Coventry at Queens Road Baptist Church, CV1 3EG.

To apply to volunteer, or if you wish to donate clean sleeping bags or washbags with soap, a flannel, a toothbrush and toothpaste or food items to the shelter, please email Coventrywinter nightshelter@gmail.com for further information.

'The streets in Coventry are tough...you see the best people and the worst'



Churches in Coventry have teamed up to launch a night shelter to help homeless people in the city through the winter. Food and shelter are being provided at a different church each night of the week until the end of March

Beds were being set up, tables were being laid and deep dishes of cottage pie were being put in the oven when the shelter’s first guests began huddling around the doors of St George’s Church in Coundon.

One young woman – the only woman to use the shelter that night – was sleeping in the doorway, her head resting against the wall. She hadn’t slept for three nights and had barely eaten.

The moment the Hope Coventry shelter opened its doors, she shuffled over to a camp bed and flopped down, only getting up once to eat.

The Hope Coventry shelters have been running for more than a week now. Volunteers offer support, food and safety to rough sleepers at city churches throughout the winter.

It’s a service in high demand. From 7.30pm groups of men arrived at the shelter in waves.

They sat down with hot drinks and began playing card games around the table. There’s no money for bets, but poker is popular because everyone understands the rules – and the rough sleepers of Coventry are an international bunch. Over half of the guests that St George’s welcomed on Tuesday evening were Eastern European; of those, most were Polish.

They’d come to England for a better life, but found themselves stranded when jobs proved hard to find.

Family break-ups and failed relationships loom large in all the rough sleepers’ life stories. Personal issues seem to be the overwhelming reason for homelessness.

Dave, in his early 40s, has been sleeping rough since the breakdown of his marriage over a year ago.

He said: “I’m not from this city, and I don’t know why I came to Coventry – before the shelter was set up, it was the worst place to be homeless.

“Nobody in Coventry cares about the homeless. It’s not a good life – the streets here are tough.

“I’ve been mugged three times by guys coming out of nightclubs.

“They steal your sleeping bag, your clothes, everything – sometimes they throw them all over the road. They think it’s funny.”

Another guest agreed: “On the streets, you see the best people and the worst.

“I’ve been homeless since before Christmas, and I’ve felt so low and demoralised. Today, I was so cold I didn’t know what to do.

“But this shelter helps. It shows there are still some good people out there.”