From Desolation Row to Providene Row

Angus Macdonald visits a new L5 million drop-in centre and hostel for the homeless being blessed this week by Cardinal Hume and finds an oasis of hope STEP INTO THE Dellow Centre the new £5 million project built by Providence Row in the heart of London's East End and the feeling of cheery optimism is palpable.
Sr Moira, the manager of the unit, known for her nononsense approach, bustles cheerfully amongst friends at the drop-in centre, pulling a leg here, mock-reprimanding there.
Some come to the centre for companionship a gossip and a smoke with friends. Some, to save money on the weekly food bill, or to get help with spectacles. But for others, it is a genuine refuge and the starting point for a long journey back into society.
Many of the former residents return to do volunteer work at the centre. Joe at the main entrance, a hefty six foot, keeps a close eye on the comings and goings of residents and staff alike. "If there's any trouble, I'll be out there in a flash," he assures me, with a nod to the bank of closed-circuit TV monitors behind him.
William is cheerfully checking people in and out at the door of the drop-in centre, greeting those he knows with a wisecrack and a horselaugh. He knows what it was like to be the one checked in.
For all of them, there is a pride in the place, a sense of their need to repay something to the sisters and to the organisation which has, for many, enabled them to survive the very worst of times.
The Dellow Centre and Bartlett House already jointly labelled "Gunthorpe Street" after their location have been open only two months, and were blessed this week by Cardinal Basil Hume in the presence of a host of City and Church dignitaries. Typically, guests and residents were treated without distinction at the ceremony and buffet afterwards.
A purpose-built complex for single homeless people, they comprise a drop-in daycentre, a 30-bed hostel for emergency accommodation, an 8-bed women's unit for medium to long-term residents, and five shared flats for people preparing for independent living all in one building.
Also included is a small convent for the ten Sisters of Mercy who will provide the bulk of the volunteers. The Sisters have been an integral part of Providence Row since it was founded over 100 years ago by a young Catholic
priest, Fr Daniel Gilbert. Today they form one of the tryptych of complementary agencies which come under the Providence Row umbrella the Sisters, the Providence Row Night Refuge and Home charity and a legally separate Housing Association also called Providence Row.
This pioneering three-way structure means Providence Row is able to have the best of all worlds as a fully-fledged Housing Association it is eligible for much extra government funding, and is obliged to meet the professional standards required of a government agency. The charity continues to act as a highly successful fund-raising vehicle in its own right. The Sisters, meanwhile, provide the love and commitment and the sense of mission as well as the sheer hard work without which any such caring institution would fail. Today, they work with many equally committed lay colleagues.
It is a highly professional partnership. The director Cheryl St Clair stresses that any Sisters have to go through the normal stringent recruitment process. "Just because you're a sister, or because you care, doesn't mean that you can do the job."
The whole package structure, staff and the ultramodern building itself has been carefully tailored to suit the centre's ultimate objective: the resettlement of single homeless people, and their successful re-integration back into society.
City firms and institutions have positively queued up to help fund the new centre beginning with a hefty half million from the Corporation of London and sizeable sums from the London Stock Exchange and trusts such as the Clothworkers' Foundation.
"We concentrated on our own locale," explains Cheryl. "We're in the East End of London, right next to the City one of the wealthiest institutions in the world.
"So we said to them here, look at us, we're your local charity and we need your help. It worked."
She places the credit for the near-miraculous feat of raising the £5 million needed squarely on the shoulders of Peter Rigby, a Catholic and Common Councillor of the Corporation of London who chairs the appeal committee. Others singled out for special mention are the Duke of Norfolk, a long-time patron of Providence Row, and Sir Harold Hood, a vice-president of the appeal. "They are all wonderful," says the director simply. "They have been absolutely steadfast in their support."
The City's support for Providence Row London's richest helping out London's poorest has now become more than just financial: the catering manager of the London Stock Exchange regularly brings across in his car the food left over at the end of the week; top City bankers play football against the residents; local schools come at Christmas and bring the gifts they've gathered or made. • Re-settlement is the ultimate aim of the project, "whether it's into a caravan or a space capsule", as Cheryl puts it. The drop-in centre with its easy cameraderie and its steaming bowls of nourishing soup is the heart of the community: "There are a lot of people for whom the drop-in centre meets what they want human contact at a very basic level," explains Cheryl. "Some people just want a cup of tea, and to 'be left in peace."
But for others it is only the starting point for a long and sometimes painful journey back into society: "We get to know the client through the drop-in centre, build up trust, and then we can start to work out what is most appropriate for them in the longer term."
If accepted as a resident, each person has an "action plan", put together with the help of their key-worker, which helps them, for example, to negotiate the minefield of social security entitlements and obligations, and to identify both practical and personal goals in a supportive and structured environment.
"There will be some people who don't have a home, and for whom that is the only problem but very few," explains Sr Moira. "It's much more than just lack of accommodation that we are trying to sort out. Most will have lost their homes because of more deep-seated problems drugs or alcohol or relationship breakdown or mental health."
This is where the pioneering "holistic" philosophy of Providence Row starts to come into its own: a battery of doctors, nurses, opticians, housing officers, psychiatrists and other welfare experts are on hand either coming in to the centre each week or within easy reach who help to tackle the underlying causes of the homelessness as well as the all-too-evident symptoms of it.
Even after they have found external accommodation, and adapted to it successfully, many former residents of the centre continue to return to the drop-in centre, where they are treated as part of an extended family.
"We make a point of keeping in contact, and of continuing to be available," says Sr Moira. "We see ourselves as a family. It can be a problem everyone that comes back needs to be fed, needs to be listened to but it's part of what makes Providence Row special."
Nothing, it seems, is too daunting for the staff of Providence Row to cope with and nobody is too far removed from their extended hand of friendship. There are plans for a "wet" shelter where alcohol would initially be permitted in order to facilitate contact with the very roughest and most needful of street-dwellers. Nobody is ever turned away: "We're working with external agencies, so if we don't have the expertise or the resources, we know someone who has," says Sr Moira.
Although Providence Row is perceived as a Catholic organisation, denomination is of little significance in the day-to
day business of mercy-bringing. Cheryl St Clair herself is Anglican. "You will find staff here from a multitude of Christian backgrounds, and some who would not call themselves Christians at all, but who share the ethos of Providence Row."
Is there an explicit Christian mission at the centre? Sr Moira again: "We lead by example. We state that we are here to improve people's mental, physical, emotional and spiritual needs, but which parts of the package they accept is entirely for them to determine. If people time to us and ask, then we Will tell them about our faith. But there is no pressure on them formal Christian worship is not part of our practice."
Both agree the sense of mission of the staff is a big part of the organisation's success: "There arc people for whom this would be just a job, but within Providence Row, there is a joint feeling of commitment. We're enormously lucky to have that bond amongst the staff. The clients can soon recognise those who are paid to care from those who actually care."
Cheryl St Clair herself was awarded an MBE in the Queen's birthday honours list, to her immense surprise. She does not miss the irony that she must have been nominated by the same Prime Minister who apparently denies that homelessness need exist. It is the only time she becomes really passionate: "I feel sorry for him that he has so little experience of life that he believes that.
"People talk in the abstract about the Good Samaritan but you've only got to stand in the street in London to see people in real distress. People say this is a problem for society, or for the politicians. But it isn't it is our problem.
"It is for every one of us who dare call ourselves a Christian to pay heed to that injunction love thy neighbour. That's what Providence Row tries to do."
The new centre is only ‘395,000 short of the Z-5 million total it needs. If you can help, please ring Sr Winefride on 071-375
0020.