We’re supporting St Alban’s homelessness charity Open Door again this year by providing space for the charity’s Winter Beds Project.
Open Door works to ensure that no one needs to sleep rough in St Albans. As demand for its services is higher over the winter period, we have donated space in our community for five self-contained cabins, known as Bunkabins, with a total of six beds.
The Winter Beds Project provides people who would otherwise be rough sleeping with self-contained sleeper cabins. Each cabin provides secure, COVID-safe accommodation with heating, electricity and en-suite facilities. Guests of the project are supported to find secure accommodation to move on to by the rough sleeper outreach team. Last year due to Covid the project ran from January through to the beginning of April and accommodated 17 people, 11 of which moved on to secure accommodation.
Duncan Lewis, Chief Executive of Emmaus Hertfordshire said:
‘The winter months are especially hard for anyone who is forced to sleep rough and at Emmaus we are grateful to be able to help some of those most in need by once again providing space on our premises for the emergency accommodation pods. Working with our colleagues at Open Door to provide this vital safety net for some of the most at-risk members of our community fits perfectly with the aims of our charity.’
These beds are provided by Open Door, and can be accessed via the charity’s drop-in service at Bricket Road, St Albans. To find out more, please visit the Open Door website – The Winter Beds Project – Opendoor (opendoorstalbans.org)