QHA dishes up 1,000 meals

The Quaker Homeless Action Christmas Shelter served 1,103 hot meals over the festive season

Volunteers at the Quaker Homeless Action (QHA) Christmas Shelter served 1,103 hot meals over the festive season. The shelter, held annually in the Union Chapel in Islington, North London, was open from 3pm on 23 December to 10am on 30 December. Volunteers spent 22 December setting it up.

Almost 250 people stayed in the shelter. Thirty-four individuals spent at least one night there, compared with thirty-five the previous Christmas. The first two nights were relatively mild and some rough sleepers chose to stay on the streets. Conditions for begging on those nights were better than normal, QHA executive director Kate Mellor explained to the Friend. A change in the weather brought more people inside.

‘Thankfully, some of the guys who we have seen as regulars (for years) have moved on and in some cases we know that is because they now have good accommodation. Other people were new to the street because of benefit sanctions, which is heartbreaking,’ Kate said.
‘We had two young women brought to the shelter because they were victims of domestic violence and the police did not have a refuge to take them to.’

Of the 1,103 hot meals served, 731 were dinners and 372 breakfasts. This was fewer than in 2013, when volunteers served 1,198 hot meals. While fewer meals were served, there was an increase in the number of food parcels handed out. Seventy-five parcels were distributed, up from fifty in 2013.

QHA launched the food bank in 2013, explained Kate. ‘We had families coming to us who could not feed their children, but we could not allow the children to come into the shelter. In 2013 we got a grant to purchase fifty food parcels of food for three days and gave them all away during the shelter. This year, we got a larger grant.’

More than ninety trained volunteers helped with the 2014 shelter.

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