Can you believe it, it’s December and I am preparing again to volunteer for Crisis @ Christmas. My 15th Year.

This year I am at a NEW Day Centre at another Harris Academy at Paddington Green. Crisis have identified a need for a centre in that area for rough sleepers and vulnerable People.

I will again be doing the full daycentre all day shifts (8.00 am- 6.00pm) this year, from the 23rd December (centre Set up day) and then when the centre is open for Guests from the 24th December- 28th December, I will be doing 6 shifts / days in total. As with previous years, Crisis are of course also offering Hotel accommodation across London at three locations, with targeted professional case worker led support. I often also do a couple of shifts in January if needed at one of these.

This year we will be able to offer full services in our three London day centres. We will also be operating the Crisis two rough sleepers Hotels, and a Womans' only Hotel, like last year. These three London Hotels offer a dignified stay for guest. Two of the hotels are open from December 22nd – 7th January and in addition one of the hotels is open from 22nd December- 21st January, giving even longer focussed accommodation and one to on support to 176 guests. All these services will be done in conjunction with all year round established rough sleeping organisations, such as: St Mungoes, local councils, Support services and hostels etc.

Please do feel free to have a read below if you want to but in case you do not have time (or you are on your phone reading this).

This Christmas thousands of people experiencing homelessness will need support. Over 300,000 families and individuals across Great Britain are now experiencing the worst forms of homelessness, including rough sleeping, sofa surfing and staying in unsuitable temporary accommodation like B&Bs. Since 2021, rough sleeping in England has increased by 91%.

This year, across our services in London and across Britain, we will be supporting 5,500 people experiencing homelessness this Christmas.

Your donations to the Crisis at Christmas charity appeal make this support possible.

In London alone there are currently over 5,000 rough sleepers in the Capital alone!

This is my 15th year for volunteering at Crisis At Christmas, but as I am sure you have seen for yourself, it is still a very sad situation with more people than ever being homeless in some way. This year and going into 2026 with the continued cost of living crisis, as well as the increase in homelessness, I am sure you will agree, that it is still needed and now more than ever. I always wanted to volunteer for a homeless charity, as homelessness has always been something I felt strongly to try and help to do something and learn about. Ever since I started volunteering in 2011, I have found it really a rewarding and a positive thing to do at the festive time.

The new Hotel and daycentre Crisis model that Crisis started due to the Pandemic, has really shown long lasting results, here are the stats from C@C:

• We extended provision in one of our hotels until mid-January and provided rooms for 196 people over four weeks.

• 98 Guests were assigned a dedicated case worker and received support after leaving the hotel.

• As of the end of April 2025, 66 people are continuing to receive specialist support to sustainably end their homelessness.

• 61% of our hotel guests were not seen rough sleeping between leaving the hotels and the end of March 2025.

• 65% of guests who benefited from our extended hotel provision were not seen rough sleeping between leaving the hotels and the end of March 2025.

• 86% of people who moved into accommodation immediately upon leaving the hotel were not seen rough sleeping again.

If you want to lean more what I and hundreds of fellow volunteers with Crisis will be doing this year – read on here!

Here is an example of what we will be offering this year:

Nobody should be without a home this winter. Help give someone who’s homeless access to:

• Hot meals and Christmas lunch

• Help with a place to stay, including hotel accommodation

• A long-term personal case worker

• Christmas activities of arts and crafts, games and quizzes

• Advice on housing, employment, welfare and benefits

• Companionship from volunteers

• Support with mental and physical health

• Year-round support, including training and education

• The chance to leave homelessness behind for good.

Crisis @ Christmas action:

"I came to the hotel in December and stayed for a month... It made a big difference to my life. I was not worried about what might happen. I felt safe in the hotel and that I would be OK.”

Sammy, Crisis at Christmas guest

Crisis will also have centres across the UK including: Birmingham, Coventry, Edinburgh, Merseyside, Newcastle, Oxford, and South Wales.

https://www.crisis.org.uk/crisis-at-christmas/

If you would like to read more on how we are delivering Crisis again this Year and how your donation will help Crisis deliver this Christmas (as well as all Year round), and what has changed / learnt from the changes we had to do in 2020/2021/2022, please take a moment to read below.

In 2020 & 2021, we had to radically review and redesign the Christmas offer to respond to the impact of the coronavirus pandemic. For the three tears for two weeks, we accommodated around 500+ guests in hotel rooms around London. Our guests told us that they benefited from more privacy and a space, albeit temporary, they could call their own. We have learnt a lot through our review and evaluation of last Christmas and as a result, changes were made to how we run our project from 2022 and in future years. This has been led by feedback from our guests and we hope that this will bring the best benefits to our guests.

You can check out to see the incredible impact the support of people just like you, had over last Christmas 2024- see below:

What difference did Crisis at Christmas make in 2024?

With the help of many generous supporters and over 3,500 dedicated volunteers, we provided hotel accommodation and support via our day centres in the capital and regional Skylights across Britain. Together, we provided warmth, a safe place to stay and specialist support to people experiencing homelessness during one of the toughest months of the year.

In 2024, our day centres supported over 1,450 people, helping them on their journeys out of homelessness. We also provided ongoing support and advice, health and wellbeing services, and food to over 3,700 people at our Skylight centres across England, Wales, and Scotland.

We provided hotel accommodation for more than 600 people who would otherwise have been sleeping rough. Giving people the safety and comfort of their own hotel room, alongside dedicated advice and support, is a transformative and dignified approach that can change lives. If you can, please help us to deliver our essential services again this year.

• The monies raised at Crisis At Christmas play a massive part in the fundraising, in the work they do all year round, not just at Christmas, so your donations really count through the year!

The Crisis long term plan and aim as we all would want, is to try and end homelessness for good and to assist the current homelessness out of the never-ending spiral of being homeless in the first place. If you would like more information on what I do at Crisis at Christmas and what Crisis does all year round and it’s aims and goals to help end homelessness, please click here https://www.crisis.org.uk/about-us/how-we-work/our-strategy-for-ending-homelessness/

Although all the people are like me and are Volunteers, it still all costs money, so your donation will make a real direct difference!!!

I have seen it for myself what your donations, Crisis and the volunteers achieve for all our guests, who really do appreciate and value everything we offer them. You can read / watch short videos of some of their and the volunteer stories (and the services and stats over the festive period) we offer, here on the Crisis website: https://www.crisis.org.uk/crisis-at-christmas/

You can read more on what Crisis does all year round here https://www.crisis.org.uk/ from its Skylight centres around the UK supporting and advising the homeless and enabling many to get out of homelessness for good; to political lobbying to influence changes in housing legislation in many areas. An example, of all year-round support and work that Crisis do at their Skylight centres across the UK.

So, whatever you can spare this year, I, Crisis and (more importantly as always), the homeless people of London and across the UK will be enormously grateful.

Please feel free to spread this link to others- as you know I am not on Face book / Twitter - I am still that dinosaur- sorry!

Once again, many thanks for taking the time to read this and I hope you have a really wonderful festive time and let us all hope we find a way out these difficult times for so many in 2026. I think it has all made us realise how lucky many of us are and take many things for granted and there are many people less fortunate than many of us.

Take care and look after yourself and others and Happy Festive and I wish you all the very best for 2026.

Steve

Steve Tandy