Church winter volunteers worth £1.5m, charity claims
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Church volunteers contributed £1.5 million worth of free work to London’s homelessness services last winter, new research shows.
Christian homelessness and housing charity Housing Justice gathered figures for people helped by churches in the capital between December 2008 and March 2009.
Fifteen churches opened their doors to rough sleepers over this period and helped more than 1,400 people.
They were run by 5,000 volunteers from church congregations and the local community, and 250 bed spaces were commissioned every night.
The charity has calculated that each shelter would have cost £100,000 to commission, or £1.5 million overall.
Sally Leigh, London co-ordinator for Housing Justice and a volunteer at Finchley Churches shelter, said: ‘The church winter shelters are an example of a healthy community response to the needs of the most vulnerable in our society.
‘We are pleased that this movement is growing, with shelters in Brent and Kingston opening last winter for the first time, and new ones in Haringey and the city of London at the planning stage for next winter.’
The charity worked out volunteers’ pay by averaging what the lowest scale worker for homeless charity St Mungo’s would earn and what the West London Churches pay occasional extra support staff in their shelter.
The cost
5,000
Number of volunteers taken on by churches in London last winter
£1.5 million
Value of the work done by volunteers
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Readers' comments (1)
Jim Paton | 05/07/2009 10:52 pm
Oh dear! Something unregulated and relatively informal is happening, making a bad situation slightly less bad. Can't have that! Some government meddling is obviously required.
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