Winchester Beacon: Providing support in the city of Winchester

Given that Winchester is a such an affluent city in the south of England, you might not expect to find homelessness a problem there. Nevertheless, there are people experiencing homelessness in the city. The Winchester Beacon was founded in 1988 to provide emergency shelter to people experiencing homelessness during winter months. Today, The Beacon is a 24-hour, seven-day a week shelter supporting between 100 - 150 people annually. Over the decades, thousands of men and women have managed to escape homelessness with its support.
Currently it offers ten single bedrooms to people experiencing homelessness, as well as three ‘move-on’ homes that house 12 people for the longer term until they are ready to move on. The Beacon also provides wrap-around support, including counselling, nutritious meals, and a wide-ranging programme of practical and emotional support to help people break the cycle of homelessness and rebuild their lives.
Lorraine Hood is a counsellor at The Beacon. “I think the difference here with counselling is that people can put together their story together, which might not be something that they’ve ever had the chance to do,” she says. “There’s a huge amount of trauma, and that’s often managed with addiction/addictive behaviour. There’s a huge amount of abuse in people’s lives. They need someone to listen that doesn’t feel overwhelmed by their story.”
The most common factors cited as contributing to homelessness are often complex and interlinked. They include relationship breakdown, mental and physical ill health, financial issues, unemployment and substance misuse. To help people facing these problems, The Beacon’s services include: one-to-one advocacy; help and support with housing, budgeting, and finances; assistance with benefits; practical aid with food and nutrition; guidance for anyone with substance misuse problems; counselling and psychotherapy; and a wide range of training and recreational activities.
“We wanted to provide some sort of way out of homelessness, we wanted to provide a light out of homelessness, and so The Beacon became that,” says vice-chair Sarah Davis. “Our aim is to move people on through support, by giving counselling, help, and advice, by filling in forms, by helping them move onto the next steps.”
There is no fixed timeline and residents can stay anything between a few weeks to a year or more, an average stay is 116 nights. At this point they can move into one of the move-on houses if they want, where they can become part of a small community in the house, and where they learn to cooperate with each other and live peacefully together. “We really try to keep in touch with everybody that moves on,” says Debbie Hughson, advocate and support worker, Winchester Beacon. “Even when they move out of here, we will continue to support them, whether that be a phone call, whether that’s a visit, just so that they know somebody’s there, because a lot of our guys are lonely, you know, and don’t have a family.”
People also learn how budget their money, and The Beacon gives tenancy training sessions to help the tenants learn what their rights and responsibilities are. “It’s my job to build their self-esteem back up, build their confidence back up, to get them into employment, and so they’re ready to fly,” says Debbie.
Oak Foundation’s Special Interest Programme (SIP) is supporting The Winchester Beacon to continue carrying out its services. You can find out more about SIP here: oakfnd.org/pro.... You can find out more about The Winchester Beacon here: www.winchesterbeacon.org.uk