Workers sleep out in freezing cold to support homeless
FUNDRAISERS have been sleeping out in sub-zero temperatures in support of our charity appeal. Businesses have been among those to brave the elements aiming to raise at least £100,000 for the Centrepoint Helpline.
At the start of the year, DJ Sara Cox and comedian Joe Lycett asked readers to back the Young and Homeless Helpline appeal by organising sleep-outs of their own. People are asked to swap their bed for a sleeping bag for a night indoors or outdoors in a safe location.
It gives people a sense of the conditions faced by homeless people, while raising money to help them. A mass sleep-out in November at the start of our appeal saw more than 1,000 people, including Lady Kitty Spencer, actress and fashion designer Sadie Frost and Made in Chelsea’s Ashley James rough it on the Greenwich peninsula.
More than 60 employees of Moat Housing raised £18,000 by spending the night of Friday, January 20, outside their headquarters in Dartford, Kent. They built cardboard shelters and slept on pallets as temperatures hit -5C.
Steve Nunn, 49, the housing association’s executive director of development and new business, said: “There was frost on the ground all around us, frost on the cardboard shelters, we were really proud to make it through.
“But that was just one night and it really makes you appreciate how difficult it must be for people on the streets night after night.”
More than 100 pupils aged 10-18 from City of London School for Boys, Daniel Radcliffe’s old school, plan to spend a night in their playground in March as
part of efforts aiming to raise £60,000. Dozens more sleep-outs are also planned in schools, workplaces, community halls and even back gardens. Anyone wanting to organise one will get close support — and an information pack — from Centrepoint.
Thanks to readers’ generosity, the Evening Standard has secured funds for the homeless charity to launch on February 13 the first national helpline for young people facing homelessness or living on the streets.
But we are continuing the fundraising to secure the service’s long-term future and support Centrepoint’s other work. For more information on organising a sleep out visit centrepoint.org.uk/getinvolved/sleep-out