Sleeping gear donations needed for homeless as winter snaps

A breakfast club for homeless people has made a plea for donations as the winter weather sparked a shortage of supplies.
Volunteer Nicky Thompson, Rosie Morse, dual diagnosis worker, and Fran Johnston, support workerVolunteer Nicky Thompson, Rosie Morse, dual diagnosis worker, and Fran Johnston, support worker
Volunteer Nicky Thompson, Rosie Morse, dual diagnosis worker, and Fran Johnston, support worker

The club, run by Worthing Churches Homeless Projects at Littlehampton United Church in the High Street, needs small tents and sleeping bags to give to its users.

Rosie Morse is one of the staff, and helps homeless people suffering from mental health and substance abuse problems to get help.

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She said that the problems they face are that there are no night shelters in Littlehampton and homeless people from outside the area struggle to get accomodation.

“We are so grateful to the generosity of the local people in Littlehampton.

By providing rough sleepers with the essentials such as sleeping bags we are also providing clients with hope, and a sense of belonging to a community.”

The breakfast club in Littlehampton is open from 8.30am to 10am from Monday to Thursday, and has been running for over a year following the success of the Worthing service. As well as offering food and sleeping gear, it tries to get people back in stable housing.

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Rosie added: “This club provides a much needed lifeline for these clients, enabling us to offer them support and advice.

“We want to challenge the perception that homeless people are different from the rest of us. Homelessness often happens when there is a breakdown of a situation, such as a major crisis and you dont have family of friends to help. It could happen to any of us. Relationship breakdown, redundancy, poor mental health, addiction, domestic abuse are just some of the reasons why people end up homeless.

“Sleeping rough can be dangerous, frightening and isolating, and some of our clients are the most vulnerable and and socially excluded people in this area. So we are asking for donations of items of sleeping bags and small tents, hats, gloves and scarves. These can be dropped off at our office at the United church on the high street, also at our charity shop on the high street.”

This comes as Tim Loughton, MP for East Worthing and Shoreham, has backed a new bill to help tackle homelessness in parliament.

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