London: Crisis open Christmas 2007.
The locations for this years events have not as yet been revealed. For referral to the specialised shelters you will need to go along in the first instance to the City road shelter, this is the only ' walk in ' shelter and will open the doors on Sunday Sunday December the 23rd at 2 pm.
Free transport will be provided from: Kings cross (York way.) Victoria station (Outside the Apollo theatre.) Spitalfields market and Temple underground station (Temple place.)Times of the free buses will be posted at these pick up points. The buses will take guests to the other shelters which will include:
A dependency shelter ~ a women's shelter ~ a quiet shelter ~ and Deptford day centre.
The main shelter is at: ... 261 city road EC1V 1JX ... All ' walk in ' guests must report here for referral to other shelters. Nearest tube station: Angel or Old street. Bus routes: 1, 394, 43, 214, 205.
Please note:
Due to limited sleeping space, homeless rough sleepers will get priority sleeping accommodation this year.
Please remember to treat all staff with courtesy and respect, they are volunteer's and have given up their time to ensure that we have a good Christmas.
Also note:
No alcohol, drugs or weapons will be allowed at the shelters. A body and luggage search will be made at the door prior to entry.
Wishing you all a very Merry Christmas from the homeless forums.
This years Crisis open Christmas (COC) has been a very controversial mixed bag, and if I were to sum it up in one word I would say .. disappointing ..The opening of this years event has been more of a .." COC(K) UP ".. than an organised event.
Non [street homeless] user friendly:
Many genuine street homeless people have been turned away from the shelters (myself included on the first day) because of over capacity. Despite the claims of Crisis to give priority to the rough sleepers, this year it has not happened. Of the rough sleepers that did gain admission many left on the first day vowing never to return.
Volunteers have also been complaining (if only to me) about this years event., I even witnessed some throw their badges away and storm off.
With regards to the ' City road ' Crisis shelter (C1), on arrival on Sunday 23rd (opening day) I threatened to call the fire services because of the fire risk associated with the venue.
Overcrowding, fire exits partitioned off, and a lack of fire exit signs. Only one entrance / exit that was serving heavy two way traffic and resulted in queues backing back into the multi floored building and up the stairwells. Equally, a crowd trying to gain entry completely blocked the only doorway. I estimated that between 800 and 1000 attendees were there at the time.
Misinformation and confusion:
The flyers issued by Crisis informed people that there would be only one ' walk in ' shelter and all other shelters would therefore by default be by referral only. This turned out to be a complete sham.
I personally went along to the ' walk in ' shelter to get a referral to Maltravers street (C2) and on arrival at Maltravers street I was turned away because the venue was full. Despite the fact that my name was within the first ten names on the referral list, and I arrived there on the first free bus provided by the COC. Evidently a mix up within communications allowed the C2 site to be used as a ' walk in ' shelter., and it soon became full of the non street homeless.
I was not the only genuine rough sleeper to be turned away, many others like myself that normally dwell in this part of London were unable to gain entry to the site for the same reason. For my part I returned the following morning and was then allowed entry. Looking back at it, that is something I now regret doing as the next few days were to prove to be frustrating and sometimes stressful.
Using the shelters facilities by day as a day centre, and then going back to the streets by night where sleep could be guaranteed is the way most rough sleepers prefer it, myself included. I found it very annoying and frustrating to have to strip out my backpack for the door search every morning on my return to the shelter. My backpack is my ' home ' and having to lay everything out on the table for public scrutiny is something that many genuine street sleepers refused to do each time they arrived at the shelter and consequently they walked away and didn't return there.
This was my seventh year with COC, and although there was an improvement in some services, overall this years event as far as Maltravers street went was the worst ever. I calculated that perhaps 5% of the residents were actually street homeless people.
This is a far cry from what COC advertises for it's fundraising where it states that priority is given to street homeless people. That statement is a farce.
After talking with street colleagues that visited / stayed at the other COC shelters, the feedback that I got was much the same. Despite the claims by COC in the national and local press advertisements. This years event was not primarily about offering shelter to the street homeless.
Health and Safety issues:
Finally, while I consider myself to be intelligent enough to acknowledge that the logistics behind the setting up of COC is tremendous. I am concerned that the health and safety regulations were compromised in part, and even disregarded on occasions.
When fire alarms sound, buildings should be orderly evacuated regardless of how many times the alarm goes off. If it is a false alarm so be it, it is better to be safe than sorry, and when the fire brigade arrives as a response to the fire alarms, surely the threat must be taken seriously.
In the event of a real fire, charges of criminal negligence or even corporate manslaughter could have been brought against individual employees of Crisis. Fortunatley, there were no fires, much to the relief of guests and volunteer's alike.
In summary:
Poor show guy's .. You cannot gamble with the lives of several hundred people. How can we ever trust an organisation that pays such little attention to the welfare and concerns of it's clients ? Perhaps some consultation with the ' users ' of the COC facilities would result in a more comfortable and safer time for everyone concerned.
Dominic
01-01-2008, 04:15 AM
Being an Aussie I've no idea what Crisis Open Christmas is other than Tom's post but COC - you just got your ass handed to you by someone with a voice that is heard.
I'm sure everyone at Crisis Open Christmas genuinely means well and did a great job on several fronts, but you got your ass handed to you on this one and it sounds like you deserved it.
Does anyone from Crisis Open Christmas want to respond?
Any other locals who know about Crisis Open Christmas want to comment?
Could be - Crisis Open Christmas is a great idea, great service... it's the execution of this program that is being questioned in this case I guess (am I right or are there more issues).
Personally I get the shits with the way a lot of service providers handle Christmas, mainly in the department of whose needs are being met....
http://www.homeless.org.au/images/christmas.gif
An image from the Crisis website. Seeing that - I'd like Gordon Ramsay to step in right now and say 'fuck off... you can't be serious.'
In this case, someone like Tom who goes out of their way to promote an event; is a consumer of those services also; and calls 'shit service' on the very service he promoted... you have got to take him seriously.
It's not nice to bullocks another service provider via the forums, but the person who comes in here to promote a service provider from a client's perspective - I think it fair that they should be able to bullocks them also from a client's perspective if the service delivered is bullshit.
The end goal for everyone is better services... and in this case for the right clients.
Is that it - is that right?
