Other Links

 

Paul was thirteen when his mother climbed into a caravanette with her boyfriend and drove off, leaving him to fend for himself and his younger sisters. He suffers from depression and, like a surprising number of younger people today, is a self-harmer – he cuts his arms with a knife. It is one of the few ways he has of expressing some control over his life.
Bill was happily married until his wife died suddenly. Dealing with letters was something he had always left to her and he felt snowed under. So the letters went unanswered. One day he came home to find the locks changed on his flat.

James was a manager and a success story. He lived with stress and was well paid for it. Then one day he was made redundant and the stress multiplied as he tried to make ends meet for his family. Eventually it became too much and he suffered a breakdown and was taken into a mental hospital. When he was released he found that his wife had left him. He had lost his family and his home. He lived in a derelict car.

People without a home come in all shapes, sizes and flavours. Some have a history of poverty and failure, others have made a success of their lives until the moment came when it all fell apart. What they have in common is that if they are between the ages of 18 and 65 and are on their own then it is no-one’s responsibility to look out for them.

Paul, Bill and James – the names are invented of course – are just three of the people who have come for help to DENS, the Dacorum Emergency Night Shelter, based in Hemel Hempstead, a new-town just outside the M25 to the north-west of London.

DENS sprang from the work of a 78 year-old Methodist by the name of Bert Inwood. With a history of running soup- kitchens for homeless people in London, Bert saw only too clearly the lack of provision for the homeless in Hemel Hempstead and set up a scheme called Rent Aid, which loaned people a rent deposit to enable them to set up in their own accommodation. The scheme was a success but Bert quickly noticed one thing – that many of those who were being helped nevertheless had to spend up to three weeks on the streets waiting to take up their new homes.

a challenge

Bert challenged local churches to provide space for a rotating night shelter – rotating because if each church provided space for only one night a week, no planning permission was needed. Churches were, of course, ideal; they had buildings which were often under used during the week and were also a rich source of volunteers. So, for five years the night shelter circulated around seven local churches – two of them URC – during the worst months of winter. Each night a DENS van would turn up with camp beds and bedding, with volunteers providing food and oversight. By eight o’clock the next morning, the churches returned to their normal tranquillity.

Last year, after years of fund-raising, DENS took the next step and the night shelter moved into specially adapted accommodation – two semi-detatched houses on the outskirts of Hemel Hemsptead. It was there that I met Andrew Liversidge, project manager for DENS and himself an elder at St George’s URC in Hemel Hempstead. Over a cup of tea and an excellent piece of chocolate cake provided by Marks and Spencer, who keep DENS supplied with food which is still fresh but has passed its sell-by date Andrew described the work which is changing the lives of people like Paul, Bill and James.

To run a day-in, day-out shelter is a big commitment, even bigger than you might think when you take into account the fact that DENS sets out not only to provide a bed but also to help homeless people to take back control of their lives. A total of 10 staff and up to 130 volunteers, support 13 residents in the two sections of the shelter. Eight beds in the first house are for guests who are living with DENS one day at a time. The second house is dedicated to ‘move-on’ accommodation – a simple single room each for five people trying to rebuild their lives but who, for one reason or another, cannot move into their own accommodation in the short term.

The day at DENS starts at around 7 pm, when staff and volunteers arrive to begin setting up for the evening. To stay in the night shelter half of the hostel you need to have been referred by the council or another local partner – allowing people just to turn up in the hope of a bed turned out to be a recipe for trouble. Incoming guests begin to arrive around 7.30 pm. For each guest there are forms to be filled in. Some relate to statistics which must be kept for government and local authorities but there are also the housing benefit claims which are the foundation of homeless provision. At 8 o’clock dinner is served around the big table in the communal area and then guests relax in the company of volunteers until bedtime. The next morning they are served breakfast and, by 8 am, night shelter guests leave the shelter for a day on the streets or somewhere warm like the public library or the shopping centre.

more than a bed

But though a bed for the night is at the heart of the work of DENS, it is only a part. People fall into homelessness because their lives are in a mess. Giving them a bed is only a temporary fix – the real solution is to help them get their lives under control.

Residents in move-on accommodation are there because they are being supported as they prepare to move back into permanent accommodation. One guest is working to pay off arrears from a previous tenancy so that he becomes acceptable to landlords again. But even those who come only for a night shelter bed can expect personal attention. After three days to settle in, night shelter residents take part in an interview designed to identify their problems and draw up a practical plan to overcome them. After 14 days a second interview assesses the progress made. In the end, if a guest is unwilling to put the effort into sorting our the problems which have left them homeless, they will be asked to leave and free a bed for someone else. Those who are prepared to make the effort are supported to the hilt, with DENS volunteers on hand to back them up when they move back into permanent accommodation.

christian roots

Running an enterprise like DENS requires professionalism as well as good intentions. In its first year the budget for the shelter is around £250,000. £200,000 of that comes from the government, much of it in the form of housing benefit. That still leaves £50,000 to be raised from local sources such as the council, business organizations and, not least, the local churches.

Though DENS is now an independent organization with its own management structure, Andrew Liversidge is quick to point out its Christian roots. At least 75% of the volunteers on which the service relies are from local churches. For Andrew, the work of DENS is part of the task of Christians in earning the right to talk of their faith. ‘We as Christians have got to get out of our nice environments and we’ve got to be helping that person across the street who’s hurting – that person at the school gate who’s probably not got just physical problems but social and psychological problems. I would say to Christians, forget friendship evangelism, let’s just start with friendship.’

know your community

 

As a committed local Christian as well as project manager, Andrew sees no easy answers for other local churches seeking to copy the experience of Hemel Hempstead. It is all a matter of knowing the place where you live. ‘Get out of your churches, go and knock on the doors. Why not say “We’ve got a prayer meeting next week, would you like us to pray for anything?” Leave it at that and see what comes out. Gradually, as you make contact with the community you start to understand what their needs are. It might not be homelessness, it might be a mums and toddlers group or a nursery because so many are working mums, or maybe there are a lot of lonely elderly people. What are the local needs? Try and understand what those needs are and then try and show how Jesus answers them.’

Today, the scope and reach of a project like DENS might seem too daunting for some to even consider starting out. But it began with the vision and determination of one 78 year-old man, a borrowed van, a few camp beds and the willingness of local Christians to commit time to reaching out to people whose lives had fallen apart. It is a familiar recipe: mix vision, commitment and a real need and the results – as in Hemel Hempstead – will often surprise and delight.