Barnabus is a homeless charity that has been based in the city centre of Manchester for over 30 years offering long term support to break the cycle of homelessness for good. We work together with people experiencing homelessness supporting them in their journey off the streets, empowering people into independent living through our support centre, trauma informed support work, our Resettlement Tenancy Project and new supported homes.
Our support centre, the Beacon, has been a sanctuary for people living on the streets of Manchester for 23 years.
Since 2013, when our database started recording figures, 9000 people have visited the Beacon over 100,000 times.
In that time the Beacons’ kitchen has served 70,000 meals, its clothing store has supplied thousands of fresh outfits and its showers have been used over 10,000 times.
After a night on the streets, the people we serve can feel utterly deflated and even dehumanised by their situation. They can be exhausted, hungry, wet, cold, and feeling helpless and ultimately worried for their future.
At our Support Centre, our friends can receive a cooked meal, a warm shower and a fresh set of clothes. They start to feel transformed, fresh, confident, and then importantly able to sit down and share difficult and personal circumstances with a support worker. It is only then that they can start to break free from the cycle of homelessness and begin to have hope for the future for a new life away from the streets and a home.
What Do We Need?
After so many years, serving Manchester and the people experiencing homelessness our Beacon Support Centre needs a refurbishment upstairs and in the basement.
We are totally renovating the first floor where our showers are. Due to heavy traffic and usage, the showers need replacing and we would like to create wet/dry rooms so that people can keep their belongings with them, and have somewhere dry to get changed.
We are widening the upstairs corridor to create more room, putting bespoke shelving and storage in place in our clothing store, and improving the men’s bathroom which has floor damage from a leaking shower.
We will be changing all our flooring, fire doors and washing facilities so that they are fresh and new for friends who use them. We are also moving the laundry room upstairs for health and safety reasons.
We are installing air conditioning which will make life more comfortable in Britain’s hotter summers and offer respite to our guests, as well as providing more efficient heating than our gas central heating. This is sorely needed; with showers running non stop, a kitchen and washing machines all going at once the average summer temperature upstairs in the Beacon is a sweltering 29C.
In the basement, we are removing the food store walls to create one large space, which will be used as a prayer space, volunteer area and food store.
Why Does It Matter?
Homelessness in Manchester has nearly doubled over the past 5 years and the work we do is more important than ever with the housing and cost of living crises. We are seeing more and more new people coming in to our centre for support with housing and to help them with their basic needs.
To meet this increasing demand we need this renovation work more than ever.
Please donate or fundraise so that we can refurbish our Beacon Support Centre your gift of any amount will help transform the lives of people experiencing homelessness.