The Woolnoth recently donated £10,700 to C4WS, a North London cold weather shelter, to provide them with funds to purchase 119 new mattresses and 51 replacement mattresses, to fit a shower, and to help establish a rent deposit scheme known as the ‘Progression Fund’. Martin Cowles of the Woolnoth handed over the cheque to Jamie Hall and Jhoana Serna of C4WS in June 2008.

C4WS (www.coldweathershelter.org) began in 2005 and was then known as ‘Camden & Clerkenwell Churches Cold Weather Shelter’ (hence the ‘4 C’s’). C4WS provides rolling shelter style accommodation for rough sleepers and the ‘hidden’ homeless in seven churches or church halls. It is open throughout the winter and staffed by part-time paid or volunteer workers, in fact more than 200 volunteers worked on the 2008 project.

C4WS guests can stay a maximum of 28 days and are accommodated at a church venue between 7.30 pm and 9 am during which time a guest is provided with food, shelter, warmth and friendship. The term ‘hidden’ is often used to describe the guests as they are not necessarily ‘homeless’ in the traditional sense that most of us think of but have been referred by local authorities or other agencies falling outside of the strict conditions required to obtain council provided accommodation. As we all know there is a severe shortage of affordable housing for people on low incomes or benefits and the waiting list grows longer every year.

Most guests have some form of work experience and skills and want to work but are caught in a downward spiral of not being able to claim benefits or hold down a job without fixed accommodation and so cant get back into work. Most guests given shelter are helped to find permanent private sector rented accommodation.

However, one of the difficulties with finding guests rented accommodation is the need for them to provide a deposit, typically around £200, to landlords. The Progression Fund, which Woolnoth has helped launch helps to fund those initial deposits, C4WS dealing directly with the landlord rather than through the guests with the deposits continuing to be ‘owned’ by C4WS. This is a new scheme for C4WS although one adopted by other similar charities. The success of the scheme can be tracked through the C4WS website.