Taking care of Grantham’s homeless

Over the last few years, there has been an increasing number of people who are homeless with little or no provision in the district. At the moment the only response that the clergy and members of Grantham Passage can do in, an emergency situation, is to send people to either Lincoln, Nottingham or Peterborough to access emergency accommodation.

The reasons why people find themselves homeless are varied and not simply as a result of substance abuse, which is often the misconceived understanding about why people are having to sleep on the streets, in tents or sofa surfing.

In response to this challenge a number of representatives from churches across Grantham have got together and are planning the way forward.

Following the success of the winter of 2020, Grantham Ark Winter Night Shelter – will again start on Monday 4 January 2021 each night, and each week one of the town churches will take it in turn to host those who are homeless.

However, to make this happen, it needs to be a cross-community initiative, when the whole community comes together to be able to support those who are vulnerable in our town.

Fr Stuart and the ‘Grantham Ark’ committee will be approaching community groups and individuals to come and help support this initiative as volunteers will be required to help each night at each location – which amounts to potentially a very large number of volunteers. We sincerely hope that people will recognise this need and respond. Those interested in responding to this call to action should email granthamark@stwulframs.com

Training sessions will be held on Saturday 3 and 10 October 2020 from 10:00am to 12:00noon or 2:00pm-4:00pm at St Wulfram’s Church. It is important that those who are willing to offer their time to help the homeless off the streets come to one of these training sessions which will be provided by INN Churches, an initiative based in Bradford. If you would like to help, please register your interest by emailing granthamark@stwulframs.com and come along to a training session.