Spires CEO - Reflecting on a year of change
This year saw a major shift in how the Spires Team provide support for homeless people. After over 30 years based at St Leonards Church Hall in Streatham, we needed to move. This move came both out of necessity (our lease being up) and a desire to use the change to support more people.
The result is that we have not just moved our centre of operations, we have also remodelled our approach to support. We’re now working across five physical locations (four in Lambeth and one is Croydon) as well as continuing to provide nighttime outreach. This includes our new Head Office in Stockwell.
All change comes with challenges, and I remain grateful to all Spires’ staff and volunteers for their incredible perseverance and flexibility during this year. Something that stood out to us in the early days was how our clients seemed to adapt to the new model quicker than we did. Each new location was busy from day one, whether it was with people known to us or new clients starting their support journey.
One major benefit of our new way of working is we’re now reaching people who need our support, but who wouldn’t have necessarily accessed it in our previous location.
We have one more change to come. As of January 2025, we will be opening a new homelessness service in Wandsworth (more news to come). This aside, our focus for the year ahead is to consolidate the services we have and further imbed the new model.
Partnerships
In the coming days, we will be sharing more about the impact we have had this year through social media and our newsletter. For now, I wanted to highlight some key partnerships we’ve formed that have supported us in our work and making the new model a success.
TLC Streatham (TLC): This is a new charity that provides food for people in need in Streatham. TLC now deliver a lunch every Thursday at St Leonards Chrich Hall. Spires have continued to deliver a Rough Sleeper space at St Leonards on Thursday morning and this partnership with the Lunch Club has Allowed us to deliver a whole day of support from the hall.
More Information About TLC: https://www.thelunchclub.org.uk/
Croydon Refugee Day Centre (CRDC): We partnered with CRDC in November 2023 to deliver a targeted drop in for newly granted refugees from their day centre. This drop-in has continued throughout this year and has enabled us to provide crisis support to a vulnerable client group.
More information about CRDC: https://croydonrefugeedaycentre.co.uk/
Refuge / Gaia Centre: We have partnered with Refuge to join the referral pathway for people experiencing domestic violence in Lambeth. The partnership includes members of the Refuge team joining our weekly Women’s drop in.
More information about Refuge: https://refuge.org.uk/
St Luke's Parish Church West Norwood: The first of our new services was at St Luke’s where we now deliver two drop ins a week. St Luke’s have been incredibly supportive, flexible and understanding throughout our first year of service and we are looking forward to continuing this partnership in the coming year.
This is not an exhaustive list and there a numerous incredible organisations and teams we have been working with for years. Without these partnerships, we would not have been as effective as we are in supporting people.
Matt Wilson
CEO - Spires