QSA decides not to run winter shelter
QSA said that ‘it is keen to develop homelessness-related services’
Quaker Social Action (QSA) has said that it will not run a winter shelter in 2021, or in the future, due to the risks. ‘We acknowledge all that was achieved by QHA [Quaker Housing Action] in running Quaker Open Christmas up until 2019 – providing a warm, non-bureaucratic and dignified experience… Yet running a winter shelter is not without risks,’ it said in a statement on its website.
‘In seeking to provide an inclusive service for homeless guests with wide-ranging, complex and often unknown needs – run mainly by highly committed but non-specialist volunteers – safety was inevitably a major concern. This was before the additional complications of Covid-19.’
The charity says there are other organisations which are better equipped ‘in experience, relationships, and, in some cases, resources’ to run a winter shelter.
It acknowledges that the decision will be ‘a disappointment’ to former volunteers and supporters of QHA, which merged with QSA in December 2020. In 2019, the project accommodated twenty-five to thirty sleepers per night, and provided a range of services to over 120 visitors per day.
QSA said that ‘it is keen to develop homelessness-related services’, such as its report into ‘unmet needs’ affecting the sector, and its Islington pilot scheme Cook Up, for people without access to a kitchen. It also awarded a £10,000 grant to a grassroots Covid-19 Homeless Taskforce, which provided support and some accommodation to homeless people during the 2020/21 winter,
