Mayor’s visit to meet the homeless
I WAS delighted to welcome Mayor of Greater Manchester Andy Burnham to The Wellspring last week.
Ending homelessness and rough sleeping in Greater Manchester is high on Andy’s agenda.
When Andy Burnham first become the mayor one of the first things his team did was form The Greater Manchester Homeless Action Network, this is a collective of lots of different organisations in Greater Manchester who work with people who are homeless or at risk of homelessness.
The Wellspring is very proud to be a member of this group. The Mayor spent lots of time talking to people who use the Wellspring, meeting the staff team and volunteers.
Over the past few months the Action Network has been working on producing a joint strategy to tackle rough sleeping and homelessness.
It is crucial that as many organisations as possible get behind this strategy to make it successful.
As someone who has worked with homeless people for the last 20 years, I’ve seen lots of attempts at different strategies, campaigns and programmes for homeless people.
Most of these have failed in their aims mainly due to not being realistic or achievable. This new strategy is the best one I’ve ever seen and I can say with confidence that it has a very good chance of meeting its aim of ending rough sleeping, if all services can pull together and embrace it.
The Wellspring stands behind Andy Burnham and his aims and we will continue to do all we can to end homelessness in Stockport.
Harvest festival is now in full swing at The Wellspring and we have been receiving lots of harvest donations from schools, churches, organisations and members of the public.
The food that The Wellspring receives at this time of year keeps the projects stock room full for the next 12 months. Our brilliant volunteers provide a meal service open to anyone in need 365 days a year from 11.30am to 2pm and Monday to Thursday evenings from 6.30pm to 8pm.
The free meals that are served are the magnet to the project, it’s what brings people in need to the project and provides the social work staff team with engagement with people in need so proactive, productive support work can take place. For more information about The Wellspring and the services we provide please visit www.thewellspring.co.uk.