Inspired by Ella Chloe Foote’s December Dip a Day for Crisis and Helen Edward’s Dip a Day for January for Oxford Homeless Pathways I will be taking on the February shift of Helen’s vision for a Dip a Day for the whole of 2017, by a different swimmer each month. I will be wild swimming every day, and on the night of the full moon, in February, a Dip a Day, that's 28 days, hoping to raise £31 a day (£868 total) and to raise awareness and support for people homeless in Oxford over the cold winter months.
£31 a day will provide a hot meal for 31 people for February 2017, continuing the support that Helen provided during January.
Survival through the cold winter months without shelter, food, support and with health problems is challenging. Shelters such as Oxford Homeless Pathways typically have more visitors as temperatures drop in the winter.

You can make a real difference to the lives of the homeless in Oxford, as the charity OXHOP looks to maintain its current level of accommodation in light of funding reductions:

£1 will provide a homeless person with a hot meal
£5 will buy a towel for use in the Shelters
£30 will buy bedding for the Shelters
£100 will help people back into employment
£250 will buy 10 sleeping bags and roll mats for emergency bedding for rough sleepers

Implications for the Future
Last month, Oxfordshire County Council announced more than 200 beds for the homeless would go when Simon House Hostel in Paradise Street and OxHop accommodation Julian Housing in Collins Street are ‘decommissioned’ by April 2018 because of £1.5m cuts over the next three years. It means 154 out of 286 beds in the county will be still be scrapped – despite the county council, all five district councils, and the Oxfordshire Clinical Commissioning Group chipping in to provide £2.94m until 2019. For charity OxHop, the cuts mean 83 beds it provides through Julian Housing accommodation in Oxford are at risk of closure in 2017.

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