What does Christmas mean to people who are affected by homelessness? Do they notice the bright lights, do they watch people walk by – Christmas shopping in the cold evenings? Do they wonder what might happen if they had the chance to enjoy a traditional Christmas, as we do, with friends and family?

The answer to the above is yes, but it is also complicated – with many more emotions and feelings playing a part in how people affected by homelessness feel about Christmas.

Last year we asked service users what Christmas means to them. Their replies ranged from exciting to scared and lonely. This isn’t unusual – as every person at SSJ is an individual with their own feelings and thoughts. Whilst some may look forward to our traditional Christmas Meal – provided thanks to our appeal – others may have thoughts of regret relating back to missed opportunities or lost loved ones which mean they find Christmas challenging.

Senior Support Worker Lucy recently spoke to Barry, who has been in our services for a while now, and his thoughts on Christmas show that all kinds of memories can resurface at this time of the year.

Barry said; “Christmas it is horrid, if it was a colour it would be black. It’s a very emotional time. There is a photo of my mum and dad sitting on a step in black and white from 1967, near Christmas time in 2015, I went back to the step and slept on it due to a relationship breakdown, and my mum had passed away.

“People helped me over Christmas time when I was homeless, someone brought me out a Christmas dinner one year, people gave me lots of jumpers, jackets and money which I was very grateful for.”

Barry continued; “now I am temporary accommodated, Christmas is still a hard time due to bereavement and mental health however I am working on myself and have better people in my life who support me now I am kind of looking forward to Christmas. “

Barry speaks about how Christmas can feel like the colour black, but ends with the fact that there is now a support network in his life – and the Christmas Meals Appeal gives us the chance to show Barry that Christmas can be a positive time of the year – and who knows what that good feeling might do for Barry in 2022.

Even for us, those who are lucky to have a home and a family to go home to at Christmas – this time of the year can be complicated, stressful and challenging. Those feelings can be multiplied for people who have a history of homelessness – some who are facing complex health issues too – meaning Christmas can feel incredibly daunting and very lonely.

Our appeal will provide a gift or a Christmas meal to people affected by homelessness, but most of all it will be provide hope.

Please support our appeal by clicking here.

If you want to find out more about our appeal – email Dennis.Jones@SSJ.org.uk

Thank you for your support this Christmas. 

We are fast approaching Christmas and people are already busily following street lights under the haze of the cold evenings, watching the displays in windows as they search for a gift to share with their loved ones which tells them they are not alone.

Christmas for most people is a time of reflection and joy. It’s a time when we can come together and recognise how lucky we are to be able to enjoy time with friends and family, reflecting on the year behind us and focusing on celebrating of love, forgiveness and togetherness.

It’s the opposite for those in our care as they come to grips with a Christmas away from the comforts of a warm home. They won’t be unwrapping presents in front of loved ones, they won’t be anticipating the taste of a cooked bird and the feast that accompanies it and they won’t sit back reminiscing with family members about days gone by.

Donate to our 2021 appeal by clicking here

By supporting our Christmas appeal, you’re providing hope, happiness and a little bit of the Christmas spirit to people who have and expect nothing at a time of year where loneliness can impact mental health and emotional wellbeing.

If you want to read more about our Christmas Appeal, visit our dedicated page and read about Jason’s journey – from homelessness at Christmas to the support he has received from The Society of St James, where he is now planning for a better and brighter future and a Christmas he can enjoy in 2021.

In 2020 we were able spend £4,500 on Asda Gift Vouchers for residents, approximately £4,200 on Christmas dinners for residents with suitable facilities, and where this wasn’t possible the Cafe in the Park produced a special Christmas hamper which was distributed to residents. Many residents were able to enjoy spending time with other service users and the true spirit of Christmas was in place for those who benefited from the 2020 campaign.

Donate to our campaign by visiting this link and help us raise £10,000 in 2021.

If you want to support our campaign or would like more information, email Dennis.Jones@SSJ.org.uk 

Autumn, Winter and Christmas is an important time for us at SSJ – as we start thinking about the colder nights, rain, snow and other elements that may affect people during the darker nights.

It’s also at this time that we start planning for the launch of our Christmas Campaign (October 15th) which follows directly on from World Homeless Day on October 10th.

We have many stories we want to tell during these winter months – and once again we will be committing to raise money for our Christmas Meal Campaign, as we have done every year.

How you can help?

We are looking for community groups, businesses and anybody who wants to support us this Christmas to get in touch and let us know they want to support our Christmas Meal Campaign. The appeal will be going live on October 15th – and we want to give you the heads of as to what to expect, how much we need to raise and what will be happening during the winter months.

If you’re looking for a challenge this winter, please think about committing your support to our Christmas Campaign and help provide a more positive future for people affected by homelessness.

If you want to support us, email Dennis.Jones@SSJ.org.uk – we’d be happy to give you a call for a chat. We’re planning a Zoom meeting before the launch to talk about our Christmas plans, if that interests you email Comms@SSJ.org.uk (Headline: Christmas Talk) and we will add you to the list and let you know the details.

Ideas: Winter runs, fundraising evening, concerts, quizzes, staff events & more.

Across our projects we are putting in an effort to make Christmas as joyous as possible for people who have a history of homelessness and addiction.

Back in November we launched our Christmas Appeal to raise money so we can provide a delicious hot Christmas meal to as many of our services users as possible. Alongside this we put together a ‘non-contact’ option for people to purchase gifts for vulnerable adults just to make sure our appeal was as COVID free as possible.

When we spoke to service users during August and September, we asked them for their thoughts on Christmas which made up the basis for our appeal in 2020. Hearing words such as hurt, anger, frustration, pain, sadness about a time we all know to be about joy, love, happiness was difficult to hear, but it cemented just how much we want to do to offer a positive festive season for them.

The Staff Make the Difference

As always, Project Managers and Support Workers across the charity are spending many hours, days and weeks putting together plans for our service users to enjoy the best Christmas possible under current conditions.

CEO of SSJ, Trevor Pickup said: “Many of our staff will be working over the Christmas period, as the needs of many people do not stop over the holiday period.   This year, staff have more to deal with than normal, with the virus making life more difficult and complex.  I appreciate the commitment of my colleagues to continue and to carry on, during this challenging time, and thank them for all their work.”

We receive many positive comments about our work on social media, as well as Just Giving and these comments help boost the morale of staff at difficult times.

Thank you to everybody who has left a positive comment or supported our Christmas Campaign. You make a massive difference to the morale of staff and service users.

Our Christmas Appeal is still running, if you want to support the campaign please click here.

Thank you to the Rotary Club of Southampton for sharing festive cheer with the delivery of 40 Christmas hamper to our Care Homes this week.

Donations like this make a big difference to our residents at Christmas, especially in what has been a challenging year for staff, residents and service users at SSJ.

Our residents were thrilled with the delivery which has lifted Christmas spirits throughout our care homes.

Thank you again for your support.

We are aware that times are hard for most people right now and that is why we are delighted that we have been able to meet our first target of £5,000 for our Christmas Meal Appeal.

The first week saw unprecedented support from supporters across the South, helping us reach more than £1,000 within the first 7 days – all leaving powerful messages on LinkedIn which will be shared with staff in the organisation to boost morale.

We reached our original target of £5,000 on Friday, thanks to a generous donation from the team at Garmin, based in Southampton, who donated the £5,000 which would have been spent on their staff Christmas Meal.

This means that there are people affected by homelessness who will be able to enjoy a hot meal at a time of the year when they can feel so alone. Our campaign has been built on their own descriptions of how Christmas makes them feel – from cold to lonely, and from stressed to angry – so we can now make sure we invest time and effort into giving them a different kind of Christmas to the one they are accustomed to.

Help us do more:

We would love to keep the fundraising going to we can look ahead at what we can do next year to give people affected by homelessness the chance to change their lives.

With this in mind, any money raised above the £5000 target will go towards helping vulnerable people take the next step forward in 2021 by buying I.D, bus passes, smart clothes for job interviews, and more.

Anything you can do to help is greatly appreciated and if you can continue to support our appeal, it will change many lives in 2021.

You can continue to support the appeal by clicking here.

Running a race in the middle of winter can be hard work, so imagine taking part in an event where you decide to carry a Christmas tree on your back to raise money for SSJ.

James and Phil took part in a ‘Festivitrees’ run on December 22nd, raising more than £1280 towards the SSJ Christmas Campaign.

We asked them some questions about their treemendous fundraising endeavour.

Why did you take part in this run?

Phil:  “I enjoy running in my past time and thought….why not raise some money for charity while doing it”

James: “We both went to school in Portsmouth, so the race really appealed to us. I also didn’t want to leave 2019 without doing a charity event.”

How was the race. 

Phil:  “The race itself, like the charity, was local. It was tough – I have never run with a tree on my back- but full of festive cheer and I was immensely motivated doing it with my best mate for such a good cause.”

James: “The race was harder than I anticipated. Whilst the tree was lighter than expected, the wind along the seafront really threw us around. The FestiviTree was very well received and kept our spirits (and those around us) very happy. We had a lot of high fives and cars beeping at us from the road! We both tired greatly towards the end and were so thankful to have a good motivation (the charity) to push for.”

Why did you choose to support SSJ?

Phil: “My best friend had the idea of running for a homelessness charity. And I suggested we select one that would be supporting those around our local area. I had a look at the SSJ website and found the focus on the re-enablement of the homeless a very positive message and one I would like to support. The charity seems to go beyond just providing those who are homeless with their basic needs, but helping them in their futures.”

James: “Seeing as we wanted to dress up in some kind of Christmas apparel, we figured the charity should also be relevant. We found SSJ to be doing a fantastic Christmas drive focusing on the homeless and thought this would be a really meaningful and worthwhile cause.”

Appeal update

Thank you to James and Phil for raising one quarter of our appeal total with their run. Whilst the campaign has now reached the target we set, it is still open and any funds on top of the £5000 will  be used towards our on-going mission to buy more housing across Hampshire, in order to get people off the streets and into suitable move-on accommodation.

You can also donate to James and Phil on JustGiving, with that money going towards the SSJ Christmas appeal.

This blog was written in 2020, but has been republished to celebrate 50 years of SSJ.

For those who have stepped into my office at Albert Road South, they may have noticed an oil painting hanging above my head. The man in the painting is called Patsy, and there is a reason it is there.

Patsy was a resident in the old Southampton shelter in Bernard Street but he also spent some time in the “new” hostel at 125 Albert Road South, (now head office) when it opened in 1992. He had been a client for many years and had a serious alcohol problem. In those days you could not be admitted into the shelter if you were drunk, so Patsy was often turned away, although he tended to just sit outside, drinking and chatting to everyone. However, in 1994 his health began to deteriorate and he was less able to cause any incidents, so he was often admitted into the building.

He was also incontinent, which meant that he needed to be in a care home, or at least a project that could manage his level of need. If he was housed in the hostel and we provided care, we were breaking the law, as we were not registered as a care provider (registered care home). The project staff came up with the solution of smuggling him into the building and not telling me, and dealing with incontinence as it occurred.

After a few weeks I discovered what had been going on and rang various parts of the NHS to see if we could get a District Nurse or some other health professional to help. None was available and we continued to house Patsy until he was taken into hospital where he died.Twenty-five years after his death, systems and services are very different. We have developed a wider range of services and our work has improved greatly. There is a wider range of options to offer people but there is still much to be done.

It is good to have Patsy hanging on the wall in my office , looking down at me and reminding me what we need to be focusing on.

– Trevor Pickup

SSJ.org.uk/Christmas