City charity begins welcoming homeless into Christmas Shelter

One of the country’s oldest charitable homeless shelters is expecting to be at its busiest this year as it tends to the needy and destitute during the festive but demanding Christmas week.

Birmingham Christmas Shelter, a charity which has been working in the city for over 30 years, opened its doors at 10am today providing 24-hour food and accommodation for those in need of a warm bed and will continue to do so up until 10am on Wednesday 28 December.

The charity, which was formerly known as ‘Birmingham Open Christmas’, will take over the premises of the St George’s Community Hub in Newtown for a just under a week, providing food, friendship and warmth for homeless people. The centre has been used as part of the charity’s Christmas drive for the past six years where it is estimated around 200 volunteers will help look after and cater for up to 150 people at any one time, serving about 3,000 meals in total.

Reflecting on official figures cataloguing 8,440 homeless people in the West Midlands – an increase of over 1,300 from 2009/10 – Alison Rees, Trustee of Birmingham Christmas Shelter, explained:

“From speaking to some of the soup kitchens and some of the organisations that work with homeless people in Birmingham, they’ve seen an increase of 35 to 40%, which is huge.

“We anticipate that will have an impact on us. We’ve never hit capacity here and obviously we don’t want to turn guests away.”

Run entirely by volunteers, the charity states its aim is “to offer food, warmth, shelter and companionship to homeless and lonely people in the Birmingham area, over the Christmas period”, welcoming all, “irrespective of gender, colour, race, religion or sexual orientation”.

Fundraising to host the annual seasonal shelter began not long after last year’s shelter finished, with volunteers being recruited as of September, a cycle which continues every year as the plight of the homeless becomes increasingly more urgent with winters getting colder.

During it’s active open week, the shelter is manned completely volunteers giving up their time over Christmas not only to provide three hot meals a day (including vegetarian options), entertainment, companionship and sleeping facilities in a safe and secure environment but by also offering hairdressing, nursing, dentistry, holistic treatments and access to doctors and solicitors when and where possible.

Members of the public also contributed goods towards this year’s shelter, with special collection points being installed at branches of Miller Homes in Erdington and Northfield, where toiletries, food and clothes were donated.

Volunteering for this year is now closed but if you’d like to register to join the Birmingham Christmas Shelter next year, visit www.birminghamchristmasshelter.org
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