New Hope has provided accommodation and vital support to people experiencing homelessness in the Watford area for over 35 years. While our vision is a town where no one has to sleep rough, the reality is that some people find themselves with nowhere safe to sleep during the cold and wet winter months – New Hope exists to provide these vulnerable people with shelter during their time of need.
Each year, New Hope operates Watford’s Winter Shelter, an initiative providing additional beds to ensure that no one has to sleep rough between November and March, the most challenging months of the year. Last year, New Hope’s drop-in service, the Haven, hosted 15 crisis bedspaces additional to our regular accommodation and 95 different people stayed for at least one night. Over half of people who stayed ended up moving into a longer-term accommodation service.
The shelter itself consists of bunk beds set-up in distinct communal spaces that are separated by gender. This way of organising the space has proven very successful compared to previous years and has allowed us to accommodate practically everyone who has wanted to stay.
For 2024 and beyond, we want a ‘pod’ to be installed in the outside area at the Haven as an independent pet-friendly bedspace that can be used by people who would not be able to stay in a shared bedroom such as people with significant mental health needs, such as veterans with PTSD, or those with pets. The pod would be functional but comfortable for people staying there, offering a bed and space for a dog to sleep as well as a power outlet to charge phones they may have. In the morning, people staying in the main shelter or pod will have access to breakfast, hot drinks, showers and laundry facilities during the regular Haven drop-in service.
Between the conclusion of the Winter Shelter at the end of March and the beginning of the following year’s shelter in November, the pod will be repurposed as an innovative and appealing meeting and activity space. As well as being used for informal meetings, the Haven regularly hosts New Hope’s Cultivate horticultural therapy and creative wellbeing service, and the interior of the pod would be ideal for one-to-one and small group activities.
Money raised through Crowdfunder will contribute to the costs of purchasing and installing a pod that will function as a pet-friendly bedroom away from the main shelter but still within the safe space offered by the Haven.