Canterbury Community Shelter 2016/17
The Canterbury Community Shelter ran for its seventh year from the night of Thursday 1st December 2016 until Tuesday 28th February 2017.
You can read our full CCS report by clicking here
Catching Lives’ Campaign team has also compiled a complimentary report on many of the social policy issues highlighted during this year’s shelter, such as the implications of prison release and hospital discharge to street homelessness, which can be read here
Volunteer with next year’s shelter
To help the shelter run smoothly, we require a strong team of volunteers to carry out a variety of evening or overnight roles:
- Kitchen volunteers to cook supper for the shelter guests at Canterbury Open Centre.
- Evening volunteers to chat to the guests, play board games, make tea etc.
- Overnight volunteers to support the paid staff at the church venues
- Bedding volunteers with their own transport to take bedding to and from the church venues
Please note, there are many other ways for people to support us with the shelter, such as through fundraising (we can provide you with help to organise events, items to do it and will do our best to pop along to any events that are organised!).
The number of clients accessing our day centre rises every year and on the 1st February 2016 we experienced our busiest day on record when we saw 62 clients walk through our door. The latest official figures published show that the number of people rough sleeping in England has doubled since 2010 and the figure reported for autumn 2016 in Canterbury was 50 rough sleepers.
There remain issues with the number of people being released from local prisons and hospitals without any where to stay and with the increased demand for private rented accommodation we are seeing a number of clients who have not been treated well by their landlords.
Canterbury Community Shelter can continue to make a difference with local people (such as our volunteers, donors or supporters) making real and measurable inroads on a local level, to a national problem. We couldn’t do it without your support.
If you would like any further information about the Canterbury Community Shelter you can email ccs@catchinglives.org for details.