Churches working together to care for the homeless

Weymouth and Portland Churches love to work together to bless our communities, and to build the Kingdom of God. Our closer relationship began in 2012 when the Olympic sailing events came to Weymouth. We all wanted to work together for those coming to our town. We did foot massage, face painting and refreshments. We worshipped together, trained together, and shared our resources. We called our combined Churches group “Refresh”.

As with many other towns in the UK, we have a group of people regularly sleeping on the streets in Weymouth. We had been working together to provide food and clothing, but as winter approached in 2018, we considered a new initiative.

Safe Sleep began with a conversation that led to another and another and then three questions … Shall we? Can we? Could Refresh, the churches of Weymouth and Portland come together on this new initiative? The answers were, of course, YES, YES and YES! September 2018 saw a partnership begin between three charities in Weymouth: Refresh joined with The Lantern Trust and Julian House to run a night shelter for 10 weeks from 21st January to 30th March 2019. The Lantern Trust and Julian House provided the professional back-up, outreach workers, safeguarding and training and each charity employed an overnight supervisor. Refresh provided the venues; two Anglican churches, the Baptist church and the Catholic Church Hall. Refresh also gathered an army of volunteers, mostly from across the churches in Weymouth and Portland, but also from the wider community who in turn gathered food donations from churches, golf clubs, neighbours.

Each night there was a maximum of 16 guests, male and female, young and old, and even a dog, and by the end of the 10 weeks a total of 829 guest beds had been slept in. Hot drinks and home cooked dinner and cakes were served, and porridge for breakfast. Camp beds were a welcome respite from the streets and in one venue there was a hot shower! So many conversations were had, guests’ stories listened to, banter, laughter, anger, arguments, and on one evening, in the middle of the hubbub, a vicar knelt with a guest and prayed. We noticed that to start with our guests were categorised as clients, but gradually we became to know them by name. Importantly we began to hear their personal stories and sensed how God might be at work in them.

Those with unmet physical and mental health needs were offered specialist interventions from partner agencies such as the Homeless Health Service, REACH drug and alcohol service, and dentists. Unmet welfare benefit needs were met and more than half were found accommodation. But most importantly no one died on the streets of Weymouth last winter.

2019

The project began again in December 2019, with more churches available, and a longer period of accommodation planned for the night shelter. With the arrival of COVID 19, this project had to end prematurely, but most clients were accommodated in local hotels. We have been able to continue to offer support by donating to the local agencies, and we hope to begin providing food to people in their temporary accommodation soon.

We are very thankful to God for the unity amongst our churches and good relationships with local agencies.

Special thanks to Cherry Clarke from Refresh