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FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS

What does Swindon Night Shelter do?

  • We work with churches across Swindon, also with local and national businesses to distribute charitable surplus, supporting and working with other services and charities.

  • We work every day of the week to serve our guests wherever they are in the cycle of homelessness.

  • We usually run a free walk up Night Shelter on Friday nights at St Mary's Church Hall on Cheney Manor Road, 9pm - 8am for people who are homeless. They will receive a hot meal, shower and laundry facilities and a bed for the night. – currently closed due to COVID 19 restrictions.

  • During the week we offer food, support, mentoring, work experience, training and help into rehab at The Haven, Queens Drive, Monday, Wednesday and Friday mornings. (Other times by appointment).We support our guests wherever we can.

  • We have two community cafés, The Hub Shop and Café on Cricklade Road which raises money for the work of Swindon Night Shelter and The Gate Café in Park North which is a community base for the area. – currently closed due to COVID 19 restrictions. We have a click and collect shop, see page on this website.

  • We collect charitable surplus and share with the community.

How is Swindon Night Shelter funded?

We are funded by donations, businesses, grants, fundraising and through the work of our Social Enterprise activity.  As a Christian organisation we are supported by local churches and we rely on God to do the work.

What is the Haven Day Centre about? Why are we doing this?

In January 2019 we moved part of our existing provision to this new location - The Haven on Queens Drive. We have been running for 11 years, operating our Day Centre and Mentoring service at our warehouse in Cheney Manor for several years. We have been in discussions with Swindon Council and other services for a while on how to provide a better service to our guests and those in the cycle of homelessness in Swindon. This is the beginning of this journey as we look to work with the council, other relevant bodies, and local organisations to ensure we give the very best care we can to those we serve.

Our ultimate aim is to share God's love and provision in a practical way so that no-one in Swindon is rough sleeping who doesn't want to be. The Haven is going to help towards that aim.

We need your help to make this possible and we would appeal to the public for practical items – see our Facebook and website pages for current items in need, volunteers and financial support via our Swindon Night Shelter Just Giving and Virgin Money pages as this is a huge undertaking financially, but it needs to happen and we have faith it will, we need your support in any way you can.

To get involved or find out more about us and the support we offer please visit our website www.swindonnightshelter.uk or call on 01793 613166.

What do you need?

We need your help, volunteers can help in so many ways from cooking a meal to working an overnight shift, any time or skills you have we can use, volunteers and ideally money donations plus also anyone with experience in finance, social media, grant applying and retail as we continue to grow the charity we continue to want to grow our skill set as an organisation so we can do the best job possible for the rough sleepers in Swindon.

As a Christian organisation, does that mean you only accept donations, volunteers or only help Christians?

No, we are a Christian organisation and that is the foundation of all we do and where our support comes from, but homelessness affects people of all ages, backgrounds and religions and we help anyone who is in need of our services

If people want to help volunteer or donate how do they do that?

Get in touch via our 'help us' page on this website or email us at admin@swindonnightshelter.org.uk or call the office on 01793 613166 and we will respond as quickly as we can.

There are various organisations in Swindon helping rough sleepers why do you think you are the best ones to offer this service with the council or why did they choose you?

We are very experienced in supporting those in need in Swindon. We have been running a Night Shelter in Cheney Manor for over 11 years as a registered charity and have been working to support our guests wherever they are in the cycle of homelessness by increasing our service to more people. We know the council is under huge financial pressure and resources are limited for example we opened up the Gate Café and the Hub Shop and Café to tackle isolation and loneliness which can lead to homelessness. We run several social enterprise projects and offer a drop in and mentoring service at our current provision. We are working collaboratively with various partners locally though, for us it is all about giving our guests the best care possible and also a chance to break the cycle they are in and hopefully get them settled in housing and off the streets. The provision of this building will help us do more for the individuals we support.

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