Riches to Rags
By five o'clock every evening people are queuing on St. Michael's Street, outside the Oxford Union. The Gatehouse is about to open its doors for two hours to provide food, clothing and above all company to the homeless.
Director of the project Andrew Smith jokes about the contrast: "We have the stars of stage and screen and Parliament turning up in their limousines to high profile events, and then people coming down here in the basement on the opposite side of the road. Sometimes people take a wrong turning and come in by mistake, which is always quite amusing."
Most of the 100-or-so people who come to the Gatehouse each evening will not actually be sleeping rough. The majority of them are in temporary and uncertain accommodation.
They live in hostels, particularly the Night Shelter, stay with friends, or are making the first steps out of difficult situations. The project operates an open-door policy - if people turn up then that is enough indication that they are in need of help.
"It's mostly about survival," Smith comments, as he lists the challenges they face. "Many are grappling with addictions to drink or drugs, or they have physical or mental health problems; some of them have learning disabilities.
"Some have been badly affected by experiences like having very dysfunctional families, or having lived in institutions all their lives. A disproportionate number of people have been in the services and many have served in wars. We have people from the Falklands and the first Gulf War who are now experiencing great problems as a result of flashbacks from those times."
The Gatehouse provides food, newspapers, books, clothes and internet access in a café-style environment. But perhaps more important is the human contact the project offers: "The Gatehouse is about getting alongside people, very often when they are at their lowest ebb, giving them unconditional support in a very informal way, providing human contact in an unthreatening and non-judgemental way.
"It's a point of contact and integration for people. If you have been scrambling around on the street all day and you come here and you are greeted warmly and offered friendship and help ... for some people it's a way into constructing some sort of life again."
The non-directive nature of the project distinguishes it from many of the other organisations working with the homeless in Oxford. There are numerous groups that have programmes for literacy, numeracy, drug rehabilitation or job searching. This contrast is closely linked to the voluntary character of the project which has only one full-time employee. Smith, however, is keen to highlight this as a strength rather than a weakness. "We work with those projects and we direct people towards them, but we're actually not about intervening in people's lives in that way ourselves; we're about being there for them."
This differs markedly from a voluntary sector which is increasingly professionalised. Voluntary organisations now often have targets to match, outputs to count, government priorities to meet and funders to satisfy. Smith suggests that the Gatehouse may inhabit the 'sub-voluntary' sector, scavenging pizzas from Pizza Hut and extra sandwiches from Boots. This approach can be controversial. Giving out soup and sleeping bags is criticised by some as sustaining a lifestyle which makes people dependent on hand-outs.
Yet Smith's simple message seems an entirely humane and sensible one: "We often see people when they are suicidal, and our job is to sit alongside them - to be there for them, without pressure to change, without trying to get them onto a programme and certainly without trying to convert them. Over months or years we get to know them, and as trust develops we are able to encourage them to sort themselves out."
The Gatehouse relies on a network of several hundred volunteers. People throughout Oxfordshire make sandwiches, soup and cakes, and many work at the Gatehouse itself, serving food and drinks. Their experiences are overwhelmingly positive: "People come because they enjoy it, and that's actually quite important, because that enjoyment translates itself into the whole place having a positive atmosphere. I hope that people who've come and visited, whether they have come as what we call a guest or whether they have come as a volunteer, will go away feeling uplifted because it's been a positive experience."
This enjoyment is functional. An independent evaluation highlighted the fact that the Gatehouse does not experience the same problems with motivation that affect many homeless projects. When staff are regularly dealing with hopeless cases it can be easy to despair or burn out. The Gatehouse does not have this problem precisely because the volunteers enjoy coming to help.
Another striking feature of the team of volunteers is their diversity. They represent a wide variety of backgrounds and ages. Smith highlights the cooperation between the local community and the University: "The great division has historically been between town and gown and one of the things I'm really pleased about at Gatehouse is that we have almost equal input from University people and town people. It's one place where they can meet together and work on something with a common purpose."
This is just one of the successes of a project which makes a tangible difference to the quality of life of some of the most marginalised and disadvantaged members of society. It does not try to change the world yet it is very successful in its aims. It is also an uplifting example of community in an increasingly atomised society.
Smith likes to talk about our 'homeless neighbours'. "They are a part of the city, like it or not, and actually we are going to do a lot better by recognising the contribution that they can make, and encouraging them to do that, rather than just excluding them and criminalising them." His stance seems an enlightened one in a city which can often be rather more intolerant towards its homeless inhabitants.
For more information on volunteering visit: www.oxfordgatehouse.org
13th Jan 2005