You are warmly invited to join us for World Homeless Day 2020. We will be hosting a series of lunchtime learnings over Zoom in the week lead up to World Homeless Day on 10 October 2020. We will be reflecting on a year which has seen unprecedented effort and achievements in the fight against homelessness.

You will get a chance to hear from our clients and frontline staff about their experiences during lockdown, and will be given an opportunity to take a virtual tour of our centre in its current set-up and hear about how we’re supporting people now.

Please show your support for The Connection by wearing blue as part of our ‘Wear Blue for The Connection’ campaign. There will also be an opportunity to provide an optional suggested £5 donation during the calls.

Please read below for each session's focus, and sign up to the corresponding date:

Tuesday 6 October, 1-2pm -Lunch with our Housing & Resettlement Manager, Linda Alexander

Linda is part of our Housing and Resettlement Team here at The Connection. The team have been working tirelessly throughout the pandemic supporting people into stable accommodation. Hear from Linda about how they had to transform their support overnight, moving towards mostly phone and internet remote work. During and after the lockdown it has become clear that the slightest barrier can now become a significant challenge, but the Housing and Resettlement team have been working creatively to overcome these.

Wednesday 7 October, 1-2pm – Lunch with our Client Ambassador, Lee

Lee has used our services for a few years, and now talks about his time when he was vulnerably housed, and how The Connection has supported him. In his own words:

"At Christmas 2010 I lost the two things I most cherished, a loved one who died with dementia and my identity as a performer when my Intellectual Property was taken from me. My response to this trauma was to withdraw from the World becoming Self Unemployed. My "Half Life" had begun and I entered the milieu of being homeless.

Now in 2020 I look forward to sharing with you some of the high and low lights of my last decade and how working with The Connection is helping me reorder my World. But it's not just about me, I hope to give you some insight into Homelessness more widely and something of a taste of what happens at and because of The Connection"

Thursday 8 October, 1-2pm - Lunch with our Street Engagement Team Manager, Dave Yianni

As part of the ‘Everyone In’ campaign as we helped hundreds of people into accommodation, the numbers of people on the streets in Westminster fell. However, in the current climate these numbers are rising steadily again, with many people brand new to the streets. Hear from Dave in our day outreach team, about the remarkable work they are doing on the front-line, working with some of society’s most hard-to-reach people, and how they are responding to an almost brand new rough sleeping landscape.

Friday 9 October, 1-2pm- Lunch with our Engagement and Assessment Team Manager, Anna Norton

During the lockdown we spearheaded managing hotel accommodation in Westminster. Drastically changing overnight, our Engagement and Assessment Team had to swap managing 150 people in a day centre, to supporting people in self-contained flats. Starting this infrastructure from scratch over night was no easy feat. Hear from Anna about how ‘Housing First’ initiatives such as these have had some amazing outcomes for our clients, and learn more about how we are practically responding in our day centre now within Covid guidelines.