Meet the volunteers who give up their time to help the homeless at Christmas

Thousands help out at the centres around the country run by Crisis, the homelessness charity, in their Christmas campaign

After five years of living in London and seeing the number of homeless people around him steadily grow, Adam Wheewall decided to do something about it.

This Christmas will be the fourth in a row he has given up spending time with his family and instead joined thousands of volunteers giving up their time to help out at one of many centres in cities around the country run by Crisis, the homelessness charity, for their Christmas campaign.

“These people are not from London - most of them - but somehow the capital draws everyone in,” Adam said. “The streets of London are not paved with gold as I’m sure you’ve always imagined; they are in fact lined with the forgotten and disenfranchised of our society - old and young, male and female, homelessness doesn’t discriminate; it’s very fair in that respect.

“It’s also very unfair in that there’s no rhyme or reason someone becomes homeless. Every homeless person was once just like you and me. Three months is the shockingly small amount of time it usually takes for someone to become homeless. It only takes a major life event - the loss of a family member or job to start a chain of events that ends with someone homeless and destitute.”

Adam, 45, who works in IT for a publishing firm, has raised more than £10,000 since he began volunteering and last year, alongside asking for sponsorship, encouraged friends to give up their time. He has spent the last four years helping out at Crisis’s West London day centre, which this year is in Kensington, serving around 250 people every day for up to seven days.

“Everyone signing up to help receives training, but obviously the training can’t really prepare you for the harrowing stories that get offloaded when you’re sat there. Loads of these people have no one to speak to, so you do end up hearing their life story.”

As Crisis opens 10 centres across London with many more in Edinburgh, Coventry, Birmingham and Newcastle, new research by the charity reveals how one in four homeless people in the UK will spend this Christmas alone, while more than six out of 10 will spend it with neither family nor friends.

Jon Sparkes, Chief Executive of Crisis, called for action to make sure nobody has to face homelessness in the first place.

He said: “Christmas should be a time for family and friends, for warmth and celebration, yet for homeless people it can be one of the hardest periods of the year - a cold, lonely experience to be endured rather than enjoyed. That’s what makes our work at Christmas so important.

“Every year, Crisis opens its doors to thousands of homeless people, offering warmth, shelter, food and companionship, as well as access to vital services.

“None of this would be possible without the generosity and compassion of thousands of individuals, organisations and companies, who give their time, funds and goods to make Christmas happen for some of society’s most vulnerable people.”

Adam said many of this week’s guests will be the “hidden homeless”, the ones people never see because they are always moving around temporary accommodation.

“They might have a roof over their heads but they don’t have a home. The rough sleepers are a smaller percentage of overall homeless so most of the people we see wouldn’t look like an ‘ordinary homeless’ person to the ordinary Joe, but they need our help,” he said.

Volunteers need to be at the Crisis centre for 7.45am with Adam, now a key volunteer, half an hour before that. And all the new volunteers want the job of serving Christmas dinner.

“That’s exactly what I wanted when I first volunteered,” laughed Adam, “and I didn’t manage to do it, but in the end I got a bit annoyed with myself because that’s the symbol of helping the homeless at Christmas – actually feeding them. I told myself off, as the day isn’t about me, it’s about them. I did get to do it on Boxing Day though! Every little job is important though.”

More than 10,000 volunteers keep over 4,000 homeless guests occupied with entertainment from arts and crafts, to five a side football. They’ll also provide replacement clothes, a clothing repair service, help and advice about employment and accommodation, and counselling for dependency.

“But above all,” Adam says, “we will create a community over the Christmas period - a safe place where the less fortunate in our society can be acknowledged they exist and be treated like human beings with compassion and understanding.”

Earlier this week the Department of Health announced that more than 60 projects will receive a share of £42 million to help people who are currently homeless or at risk of becoming homeless. It has awarded £38.7 million of grants to homelessness and housing charities who were invited to bid for funding in March 2015 with another £3.4 million from the Greater London Authority.

Minister for Public Health Jane Ellison said: “We want to help homeless people get back on their feet, into safe accommodation and get the skills, and importantly, healthcare they need to get on in life. We also want to help prevent homelessness in younger people who are at risk.”

The money is being made available under the Homelessness Change and Platform for Life programmes over the next two years. Whether it effects big changes remains to be seen. Back at the Crisis centre, Adam said the act of volunteering at Christmas itself has changed him for the better.

“It’s made me look at other people in a very different light, not just homeless people but others in different circumstances. It’s very easy in this ‘me, me, me world’ to think I’m alright Jack and look down your nose at other people. I think it’s made me a far more compassionate human.”

You can donate to Adam’s appeal here