Day Centre
Primary function: to provide for basic health, housing and education needs.
During the year:
34,707 visits to the Day Centre (last year 33,102) 4,139 different people used the Centre (last year 6,575)
Next year:
We aim to increase consultation with, and involvement of, users of the Centre, as well as increasing opportunities for volunteering.
Day Centre:
The Day Centre, open from 8am to 6pm on weekdays, 9am to 12 noon at weekends, often helps more than 200 people a day. Rough sleepers are given priority during the breakfast period to enable them to access showers, medical care and clothing, as well as food.
To ensure that we are able to focus on our core work – helping homeless and vulnerable people – we no longer operate an open-door policy. As a result, fewer people use the Centre but, since we are now able to direct our resources to those most in need, the total number of visits has increased. While we see smaller numbers of the skilled, healthy and motivated people from EU accession countries, we continue to work with anyone, wherever they are from, who meets our criteria and needs our help.
Hospitality team:
The team members run “the floor” of the Day Centre. They ensure that the Centre is safe and welcoming, and introduce new clients to its services. Of two drop-in sessions, the first, from 8am to 11am, is aimed at rough sleepers in the Victoria/South Westminster area, although anyone sleeping rough is given access to primary services and advice. At the second, from 11.30am to 2pm, people who are vulnerably housed, as well as those sleeping rough, are welcomed. The afternoon is taken up with assessing clients’ needs, and running group activities and training.On Saturdays and Sundays the Centre is open from 9am to 12 noon. The teams which run the Centre at weekends include many volunteers.
Assessment and Advice team:
The team assesses clients’ needs, provides housing advice, and supports clients in accessing any benefits to which they are entitled. It provides a specific service, funded by the Irish government, for Irish clients, and has relationships with Borderline, a service for Scottish homeless people, and SSAFA, a service for former members of the armed forces.To help clients back into their own homes, we have relationships with, and have made referrals to, three accommodation providers: Paradigm Housing Group, St Ignatius Housing Association, and Arhag. We run pre-tenancy workshops for clients and, to improve communication with the Day Centre, have joint team meetings with the Health and Streetlink teams.