Every quarter we’ll be highlighting the amazing work of a WCVA member. In this blog, Jamie-Lee Cole from The Wallich shares how they’ve developed their services throughout the pandemic, and asks other organisations to join them in the fight against homelessness.
As a homelessness and rough sleeping charity, we know that supporting people out of homelessness is more than a roof over someone’s head. Responding to COVID-19 has been no different, and with the resilience, determination and flexibility of the staff at The Wallich and other organisations, we have all worked together to keep people safe during the pandemic.
At The Wallich, our key aims during the pandemic have been to:
- Keep people safe.
- Delay transmission of COVID-19 within The Wallich communities.
- Reassure our staff and clients.
- Keep our critical services running, adapting and responding as necessary so that the most vulnerable groups continue to receive support.
- Restore all of our projects and services in line with changes to lockdown restrictions.
So how have we been supporting people? Thanks to the help of the WCVA Voluntary Services Emergency Fund, we have been able to respond to COVID-19 efficiently and make sure people experiencing homelessness continue receiving support.
OUR IMPACT
Figures from March 2020 – March 2021:
- The Wallich maintained frontline services throughout the pandemic; providing support and keeping more than 4,723 people safe.
- We supplied 350 frontline staff with more than 200,000 items of PPE to reassure them, keep people safe and limit the transmission of COVID-19.
- We made adaptations to our project environments to facilitate the safe re-opening of 68 service across Wales.
- We delivered 3,458 hot meals to 184 people in temporary accommodation.
- We ensured that more than 1,000 people had access to food during periods of lockdown and isolation and over the Christmas period.
- We delivered 54 counselling sessions for people experiencing a decline in their mental health as a result of the ongoing lockdown measures.
- We provided laptops and tablets to tackle digital exclusion and help service users maintain engagement with our online support and involvement services.
PARTNERSHIP WORKING
We couldn’t achieve our COVID strategy alone. By framing homelessness as a public health issue, there’s been some remarkable examples of working with other agencies – many of which are also WCVA members – to help people experiencing homelessness throughout the past year.
In March 2020, The Wallich, Swansea Council, Pobl and Goleudy (formerly Caer Las) all pulled together to launch a brand-new hostel in just six weeks for people experiencing homelessness.
As well as a place to stay during lockdown, the Ty Tom Jones hostel provided specialist support for the residents, including access to medical care, harm reduction support, counselling, budgeting help, advice with mental and physical wellbeing and diversionary activities such as arts and crafts.
As the pandemic has continued, Ty Tom Jones has remained a constant.
Elsewhere in Wales, The Wallich has been working with Kaleidoscope, a drug, alcohol and mental health charity, to deliver trauma-informed outreach on our mobile Welfare Vehicle. The partnership has brought health and homelessness support to people on their own terms.
We then took our partnership further to join with other agencies, such as Cymorth Cymru, to call on the Welsh Government for priority access to the national vaccination programme for people experiencing homelessness in Wales, and to work together with the third sector to deliver vaccines to hard-to-reach groups. By harnessing our collective influence, it was recently announced that people experiencing homelessness would be included in vaccination priority group 6, and that health boards should be decreasing the risk of transmission amongst the people we support.
For true change to happen, it takes collaborative efforts across the housing, health and criminal justice sectors to help people off the streets for good.
WORKING TOGETHER TO END HOMELESSNESS IN THE FUTURE
The reality is, while the pandemic has been a once in a generation opportunity to help people off the streets, our focus must now turn to ensuring long-term solutions to make sure we don’t return to pre-COVID levels of homelessness.
At The Wallich, we will continue to put pressure on decision-makers to change policy which puts people at risk of homelessness. For example, the barrier of the No Recourse to Public Funds and the release from prison and other institutions into homelessness. We also join Tai Pawb, Shelter Cymru, CIH Cymru and others to call on government to recognize housing as a human right in law.
If you are and organisation who thinks we would be stronger working together to create positive change in people’s lives, our door is wide open.
Get in touch: communications@thewallich.net