Our winter shelter ran from 1st October 2018- 31st March 2019.

It used 7 different church halls around Canterbury, providing up to 20 emergency bed spaces for homeless people each night.

The full shelter report can be found here

Thank you to everyone who supported us, including our volunteers,  the seven church venues, all those who undertook fundraising, and all who donated items, for helping us make the shelter a success and for your part in helping some of the most vulnerable people in our community find accommodation, and access the shelter during the 6 months it ran.

 

How the shelter works

To register for the shelter people can visit our daycentre on Station Road East and speak to a staff member there.

All potential guests must be with us by 11am if they want to be considered for a space that night. There are no new admissions over weekends (so a potential guest must be with us by 11am on a Friday if they wish to be considered for a space over the weekend).

If you are working for an organisation (statutory or charity), and wish to refer a service user to us, please contact ccs@catchinglives.org for a referral form and guidance first before they arrive.

 

Eligibility Criteria

CCS offers a service to those with Housing Related Support needs. This service is available for people who:

-Are 18 years and older (Anyone younger will be signposted to the local authority).

-Are not considered, after assessment, to be too high a risk to themselves, staff, volunteers or other clients, or to need more support than we can offer.

-Are considered safe and suitable for admission by the admissions staff (i.e. the CCS Co-ordinator, General Manager, or Project Workers) who have the authority to determine whether CCS is able to provide overnight accommodation to a prospective client.

-Are willing to accept a full Risk and Needs Assessment and a Mental Health Assessment and engage with support offered by staff and services during their stay.

 

Volunteers required

If you would like to volunteer next year, stay tuned to this page, and further details on how to apply are here 

We would also like to hear from anyone who would like to help with fundraising for the coming shelter, so if interested please get in touch (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!).

 

Campaign Work

Campaign Kent CIC Social Policy Reports- Please also find reports compiled by Kelly Napier, director at Campaign Kent (and a Catching Lives trustee) with detailed case studies of some of the situations, for example hospital discharge to street homelessness, that our shelter guests faced this winter, and also an analysis of the data collected (and how it compares to last year).

The campaign report on the Canterbury Community Shelter 2017/18 can be downloaded here 

The Campaign Kent research report, taking statistics from the Canterbury and Folkestone shelters can be downloaded  here

 

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.