Eileen Jones runs Cumbria PR and supports Manna House in Kendal

Don’t walk on by

CHARITABLE giving is a very personal choice. Regardless of issues surrounding some charities recently, our decisions are usually determined by the heart, rather than the head.

It may be that friends or family were affected by a particular disease or illness, and that determines where our donations go. We’re emotionally affected by mass TV events such as Children in Need and Sport Relief, or more directly by appeals on social media.

Children – and animals – are the causes that tug at the heartstrings. It’s very much harder to raise funds to help the ones with no immediately recognisable illnesses, who just happen to be sleeping on our streets.

Homelessness is the disgrace of our time. We live in a country where houses mostly have central heating, and often more than one bathroom, where family cars may have a roof over their heads at night, and yet growing numbers are sleeping in shop doorways. Not just in cities like London and Manchester, but here, in Kendal. In Ambleside. In Grasmere. In Windermere. And we walk on by.

(Please, at this point, don’t insult their plight and suggest that they are there by choice, that they are exploiting the 'system'; point a finger instead, perhaps, at the politicians exploiting a system to claim expenses for multiple homes and garages for their cars).

Last year in London, 141 people died on the streets without a home they could call their own.

They are somebody’s children. They may have children of their own. They may have had successful lives and careers, like the Portuguese former model, a lover of singing and yoga, who was found dead in Westminster tube station, near the entrance to the Houses of Parliament, recently.

It was only on Christmas Day, when we spent a few hours on the streets of Manchester handing out blankets, woolly hats, tissues and fruit to the homeless, that we began to understand the extent of individual problems, the mental health issues, the personal crises brought about by government policies of sustained austerity and cuts to vital services.

“When you operate a policy of prolonged austerity, when you cut drug and alcohol services, mental health services, housing services, you lose the right to be surprised that people are falling through a net where the holes are getting bigger every day,” said one charity worker. “That’s the reason rough sleeping is increasing so much, and it urgently needs a comprehensive response.”

A prolonged winter doesn’t help. When the mercury drops below a certain point, however, emergency provision automatically kicks in until the cold snap ends - meaning there is somewhere indoors for everyone to bed down.

How cold? Nationally, the legal requirement for councils only kicks in after three days in a row of sub-zero temperatures.

Here in the South Lakes, churches in Kendal work with the Manna House charity through the winter to provide overnight shelter for those who need it. Scores of unsung-hero volunteers have been giving up their time to help to supervise the scheme, managed by the team at Manna House.

Manna House also run a daytime drop-in centre, providing warm food, chairs to sit on, people to talk to, people who will listen. People who will provide a lift to their benefits appeals in Lancaster (for how do you attend an appointment when you have no bus fare?).

It’s not a glamorous charity with high-profile sponsors, just a team of decent people doing some very critical work.

Don’t just walk by. One in three working families in England could not afford to pay their rent or mortgage for more than a month if they lost their job, according to Shelter.

You’ll know someone who might be next.

http://www.manna-house.org.uk/