COVID19 and the new normal

Barnabus is a frontline Christian Homeless Charity in Manchester serving the City’s Homeless for almost 30 years through our Drop-in, Health and Wellbeing Suite, Support Team, Resettlement Tenancies, Outreach and Projects.

During this Covid 19 crisis our priority has been referring rough sleepers into Hotels and other accommodation in the City so that they can self-isolate and stay safe, ensuring they receive much needed food, essential items and emotional/mental support. During this time of lockdown we prepared, cooked and delivered over 40,000 meals to vulnerable people and people experiencing homelessness in Manchester.

As a result of the pandemic and social distancing measures we’ve now re-opened our Drop-in as a Support Centre. As we can only now see a handful of people at any one time we have a unique opportunity to offer deeper one to one support moving away from emergency accommodation to more long term accommodation, resettlement tenancies and holistic support around health, finances, emotional and mental wellbeing, skills, training and employment opportunities to bring about sustainable, long term transformation.

Our vision is to end the revolving door of homelessness and to see people settled into long term accommodation and realise their hopes for the future.

These times have been challenging for all of us if you can help with fundraising, sponsorship of salaries or activies, corporate partnerships, donations or volunteering we would love to hear from you please see our heading how you can help us.

For more information on what we have been doing to support people experiencing homelessness through The Lockdown and beyond check out The Barnabus Blog.

Latest

World Homelessness Week Challenge

In the month leading up to World Homelessness Week (5th-9th Oct) You can do something amazing and raise vital funds to support our work helping people experiencing homelessness into new lives away from the streets.
Barnabus Urban Harvest

Autumn and Winter can be a particularly life threatening and challenging time of year for anyone sleeping rough in our City. It’s also sadly, our busiest time; our priorities are keeping people fed, warm, dry and as safe as possible at our Support Centre.
Hopeful Future For Our Friend

We are so happy to share with you that a friend of ours is doing really well at a project where they are off the streets and can get help with their alcoholism.
Helping our friends to get off the streets in our first month back open

On the 5th August our new look Beacon support Centre opened for the first time since lockdown began in March. Our outreach team have been telling everyone they meet about the beacon re-opening and word is spreading around the city among the rough sleeper community.

Sad news from the streets

It doesn't happen often anymore, thank goodness, but a couple of weeks ago, someone we knew died on the streets in Manchester.
End of Week Blog 27/03/2020

What a week it’s been, not just for Barnabus, but for the whole of our nation. Last week was all about shock and panic, this week was all about mobilisation when we realised we were moving to lockdown due to the corona virus.
Success finding our friend a new home during lockdown

In July, Aimee, our Resettlement Worker, was able to house someone experiencing homelessness. This is doubly impressive as she has done this despite the challenges posed by COVID19 and in her first month back from maternity leave. Our outreach team first met this man when he was rough sleeping on Market Street in May during the peak of the Lockdown. Our support team were able to house him in temporary accommodation in the city.
Our support team are still a lifeline through this lockdown

Stephen Rowley is our Head of Support; before the crisis he was supporting rough sleepers and people experiencing homelessness with one to one support at our Support Office and Drop in. During this lockdown he is now providing support on the phone to rough sleepers in hotels and tenants self isolating in our Resettlement project. He is also feeding back to the team any deliveries or practical support that may be needed.
End of week blog 8/05/2020

Sadly there is still a small group of people rough sleeping in Manchester, spending their days and nights on the streets. We are now doing street outreach again to feed these people and support them into accommodation
Volunteer with us

Our wonderful volunteers are the heart of what we do and without them, we couldn’t do the work we do to get people housed. We have volunteers from all over Greater Manchester, as well as Cheshire and Lancashire, all age groups and all walks of life.
Homelessness in Manchester

If you’ve walked the streets of Manchester, you’ve almost certainly passed by a rough sleeper. In fact, you’ve probably noticed that there are more people living and sleeping out on the streets. In 2010, the official rough sleeper figure was 7. In 2018, it was 94. Unfortunately, we know that in reality, the number is much higher. Please read on to find out more about homelessness in our city.
Donate Items

During this Covid 19 crisis we've cooked and delivered 40,000 meals to rough sleepers in emergency accommodation so that they could self isolate and keep safe, while ensuring they have essential supplies and food. We are also out on early morning outreach to support rough sleepers who may be new due to this crisis or mentally unable to cope with being indoors.
40,000 meals delivered to rough sleepers during Lockdown

The Beacon Team, our volunteers, Feed my City, the Rev Ellie and Alan and Darren (our delivery team) have now cooked and delivered over 40,000 meals to people experiencing homelessness in Manchester. As we prepare to hand over the food provision to the hotels which are housing people experiencing homelessness we are taking the opportunity to reflect on the last three months and everyone that has made it possible.
End of week blog 15/05/2020

Last week we reached a milestone. Since the start of lockdown we have prepared, cooked and delivered over fifteen thousand meals to vulnerable people and people experiencing homelessness in Manchester. We spoke to some of our staff and volunteers to hear what their thoughts are on reaching this milestone.