Missionaries of Charity

Woken up at 5.00am by the sound of an alarm – this time not the one in our patch. Wasn’t sure if the alarm was the precursor to a visit from St Mungo's CAT. (The first time St Mungo’s CAT visited us the alarm in our patch went off for the whole duration of the 20 minute or so visit). Nobody came and I quickly got back to sleep.

St Mungo’s CAT hasn’t come to see us since they verified us on 7 Nov as rough sleepers. If the biggest organisation in London working with the homeless refuses to refer us to a night shelter, what chance have we got with anybody else? The vast majority of night shelters only accept homeless that have been referred by a CAT worker. Two of the few (if not the only) shelters that accept self-referral are run by the Missionaries of Charity – the religious order founded by Mother Teresa.

The Missionaries of Charity run two night shelters in London: “Gift of Love” for men and “Home of Peace” for women. Declan phoned the “Gift of Love” early on Saturday and Sunday after talking with a homeless guy in Crisis. On both occasions he was told there were no vacancies.

Today, Declan is told that they have a vacancy. We are almost convinced that tonight we are going to sleep in a bed. I don’t know the statistics on homeless women, but the numbers are smaller than for men. For example, the Whitechapel Mission only has one shower for homeless women, while the Dellow Centre has two (one of which is out of order).

So Declan phones the “Home of Peace”. He tells the nun that answers the phone that there is a vacancy for him in the “Gift of Love” and asks if there is a vacancy for me. He is told that there is, and then she asks for some background information: where do we come from, how long have we been sleeping rough, why are we sleeping rough … After Declan tells her about the termination of our unemployment benefit and that we have a High Court hearing on 11 Dec (what is the point in being vague and then interrogated at the front door?), she says there are no vacancies and phone again tomorrow. Then she hangs up – leaving us £2.50 poorer.

It is actually extremely easy to keep somebody in the street. As a homeless person, you need a day centre to put in a request for a CAT to visit you at your patch during the night. From there, the CAT refers you to a night shelter. But if the CAT tells you that there is nowhere you can be referred to, or that you need to be visited again (and you never are), there is little you can do.

For example, last Friday afternoon while we were in Crisis the same homeless guy told us about a rolling shelter run by St Mungo’s. Immediately Declan phoned the shelter and was told that if we had a referral from our St Mungo’s CAT, we would have had beds.

Your other option is a shelter that accepts self-referral. But the Missionaries of Charity don’t seem too interested in getting caught in a government agenda.