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Our volunteers always say we are the HOPE family. One of our service users brought us this card and poster tonight. Please take the time to read it.
it was a very busy night and a very cold night. This card made us realise why we do what we do.
As this pandemic is increasing, it is getting harder to avoid whilst still providing a quality service for our service users.
We have a duty of care for everyone. Service users and Volunteers, alike. Pre-session briefing get longer.
Our tables are adorned with stickers and hand sanitisers. Our volunteers are all PPE’d up. Signs are erected and everything that doesn’t move is sprayed regularly. Our volunteers have to wear moisture resistant medical masks on the front line. Only people in the same bubble are allowed in our rooms within our buildings. Risk assessments are updated constantly and improvements are implemented.
Our volunteers put themselves and their families at risk to help people in need and we are very proud of them. Let us hope that the vaccines are rolled out quickly enough to prevent this awful situation worsening.
Since Burton HOPE began we have been campaigning against the inaccuracy of the annual rough sleeper count since it returned numbers that were too low. If you underestimate the level of a problem, it makes it difficult to tackle.
I went on Channel 4 with Ross Kemp to dispel the myth that South Derbyshire had no homeless as reported in the inadequate annual count for that District. Odd that they then had their homeless living in a local hotel once COVID-19 struck! At the time the S.Derby's MP was Homeless Minister.
East Staffordshire, including Burton has always returned numbers way below the actual number of our residents that were sleeping rough.
It is now time for change. When I challenged the method of the count, which I have done many times, I was told it would upset the Rough Sleepers graph that had been built up over the years if the count method was to change. This came from an employee of the Ministry of Housing Communities and Local Government (Rough Sleeping Adviser | Rough Sleeping Initiative).Homelessness Division).
Excepts from this BBC report:
"Five times more sleep rough than official figures".
"Research by the BBC carried out in February 2020 showed more than 28,000 people across the UK had been recorded as sleeping rough in the previous 12 months - and in England, councils were seeing figures five times higher than the snapshot".
At this time, due to COVID-19, our local homeless are being offered various accommodation types, from temporary to more permanent and schemes exist to move homeless people on from temporary to more permanent accommodation. The COVID-19 pandemic has certainly kick-started a move to prevent homelessness.
www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-55652524
Coronavirus: Government's rough sleeping strategy 'out of step'
www.bbc.co.uk
Boris Johnson pledged to end rough sleeping by 2024, but a watchdog says plans need reviewing post-Covid.WE ARE OPEN THROUGH LOCKDOWN
HOPE2STREET Outreach Saturday and Sunday. 6-8pm..... OPEN.
HOPE2HOME Food Parcel delivery. Tuesday and Thursday.. OPEN
HOPE4ID.............................OPEN.
HOPE4EU.............................OPEN.
HOPE4SUPPORT...............OPEN.
We are confident in our COVID-19 control measures.
We constantly improve our control measures.
Always here for those that need us.
HOPE4ID
We are still able to get birth certificates during lockdown. One arrived today that took around a week to come.
ID can really change a person’s life.
