Diocese of London Housing Summit Part 1: Practical Parish Responses
Event Information
About this Event
The Archbishop of Canterbury's Commission on Housing 's recently published ‘Coming Home’ report has called the church to play its part in solving the housing crisis in our nation and bearing witness to the ‘home with God’ to which we are invited.
This is Part 1 of a 3 part series of "TED talk" style seminars as a response.
They aim to help those of us in the Diocese of London imagine how we can get involved in meeting housing need, engage with our communities, and enable people to encounter the love of God in Jesus Christ.
PART 1: PRACTICAL PARISH RESPONSES
How do we move beyond offering a bed for the night to offering homes to live in? The evening, hosted by Bishop Graham Tomlin, will start by looking at the theology of housing, underpinning our whole response as churches.
We'll have an overview of who in our society are most likely to find themselves homeless, and hear how the Covid-19 response “Everyone In” for street sleepers in 2020 has helped us reimagine what is possible for tackling homelessness.
Before the pandemic, by far the most co-ordinated church response to street sleeping have been "Winter Night Shelters”, spearheaded and co-ordinated by Housing Justice.
This has been successful across the Diocese for many years, but that has been massively disrupted by Covid. We'll hear from Housing Justice, what happens next for the Night Shelter model.
We’ll then have short talks from several innovative initiatives and projects churches can get involved with, beyond Winter Night Shelters, to continue to respond to the issue of homelessness and the vulnerably housed.
We'll will listen to stories from parishes who have journeyed with those who find themselves homeless, learning from their experiences.
We'll have contributions from:
- Jon Kuhrt, Specialist Rough Sleeping Adviser for Government
- Housing Justice
- Ed Walker, Hope into Action
- 'Hope for All' Housing Surgeries
- Hosting Schemes from Housing Justice (including our own 'Clergy Hosting') & NightStop from DePaul
- Rose Hickman, 'The Passage' Befriending support
- Diocese of London parishes
