11/03/2021
We take a look at the number of people who have used our service since the start of lockdown in March 2020.
Throughout Covid-19 we have been constantly changing and developing our service to support individuals who need our help. For an update on how this work continued as we entered into the third lockdown at the start of 2021 visit our YouTube Channel.
Since March 2020 our service has been constantly changing in line with current Government advice and to ensure that we are providing the best possible service to those who need our support.
Initially at the start of lockdown we provided breakfast and lunch to rough sleepers only through our gate at the Project. The through the gate service remains in place today. We moved to serving outside in order to aide social distancing. Those who come to the project have still been able to access the showers, laundry and facilities inside our building.
From April 2020 onwards we worked with multiple agencies and organisations across the city to provide ‘meals on wheels’ as an addition to our through the gate provision. The ‘meals on wheels’ service was, at its peak, providing nearly 200 meals a day, which went out to those individuals who were vulnerably housed. Without the support of other agencies this service would not have been possible.
From August we made the decision to begin to trial a sit-down service inside our building. Now individuals can also eat inside our building – though the number of people is limited due to social distancing.
You can see the development of this service in the food provision graph.
Throughout the pandemic new people also continued to use our project. The number of new people who used our centre is shown in the following graph.
Through the pandemic we have not stopped helping people. We have had to change our service fast several times in order to keep pace with the guidelines and continue to support people. Our service became a multi-agency one, with numerous organisations in Sheffield working together to ensure that there was provision for homeless people 7 days a week from our centre. For more information on how we reacted and the impact on our service you can continue reading here.
Numbers of people we supported in 2020 |
|
Number of people we supported (from April onwards we primarily supported people who were rough sleeping or not on benefits). | Over 850 |
Number of people who were known to be sleeping rough and/or not on benefits who were supported | 452 |
Number of breakfasts, lunches and sandwich bags | over 8,400 |
Number of new people to use our service during lockdowns | over 90 |
Number of times we turned the washing machine on. | 1,250 |
