ASLAN Story

THE ASLAN STORY

PHOTO GALLERY

The All Souls Tea Run was set up in January 1988 by a band of young people from the “20/20” youth group at All Souls Church, Langham Place, in the heart of London’s West End. They were concerned about the growing numbers of homeless people who slept out in appalling conditions in the midst of this affluent city. They wanted to share Christ's love with these people in whatever little way possible. They decided to go out in a minibus before dawn on a Saturday morning (when "rough sleepers" are most likely to suffer - even die - from hypothermia), and offer the homeless hot tea, some food, a listening ear, and the message of hope in Jesus.

It very quickly became necessary to supplement the food kindly donated by M&S and others, so the Friday night sandwich-making sessions at the All Souls Clubhouse came into being. Without the work of these dedicated "backroom boys" (and girls!), the Tea Run simply could not continue, particularly now that economic uncertainty and new health regulations have dramatically reduced the amount of food we get given. More recently, we have started to distribute hot baked potatoes and clothing generously donated by the Church Family, all of which requires preparation in advance for the Saturday morning teams.

In March 1989, the Tea Run leadership felt called to do more for the homeless, so they went to see the Church of England Board of Social Responsibility. The Board suggested that they should contact The Passage day centre, run by the nuns of St.Vincent's, which had to close at weekends because of a lack of staff. And that led to an agreement that All Souls volunteers would staff The Passage on Saturday mornings, providing exactly the same range of services to the homeless as the Tea Run, but with the added benefit of somewhere to sit down, have a wash and use the toilets, and get out of the cold and wet for a while. (In Spring 2007, we moved from a much-changed Passage to London City Mission's Webber Street Centre, helping them to start a Saturday morning service which was far closer to ASLAN's original vision for, and approach to, our Day Centre work with the homeless.)

In the autumn of 1992, feeling that we should always walk forward in Christ's service, the Tea Run began exploring a number of possible new initiatives including entertaining the homeless (if you are sleeping rough, you seldom, if ever, get invited out anywhere) and providing support and fellowship for those wanting to leave the streets or recently having left the streets (the transition back to settled life is far more difficult than most people imagine). The first of these – providing social evenings for the homeless - started operating in March 1993 at the All Souls Clubhouse. The second – pairs of volunteers visiting people who want to be resettled or have been recently resettled – started in July 1998.

In summer 1993, we changed our name to ASLAN (All Souls Local Action Network) to reflect both the growing diversity of our services to the homeless and the increasingly ecumenical nature of our organisation (though 80% of our volunteers and 75% of our leaders still come from All Souls Church, we now have volunteers from several other Anglican churches and from every other major Christian denomination).

Work in our Visiting Teams (mentoring scheme) has revealed how difficult many ex-homeless people find it to cope with the mass of bureaucracy which confronts them on being resettled. When you have previously been of no fixed abode, just opening a bank account can take days of lengthy negotiations, often ending in failure. Which now makes it very difficult to receive benefit payments. Social security offices and housing associations frequently make mistakes which can be difficult to identify, let alone rectify. Many ex-homeless people just give up and let things drift, often ending up in court and back on the streets, or even in prison.

We therefore want to establish an advocacy scheme where people who are both good negotiators and knowledgeable in the relevant field, can accompany homeless/ex-homeless people to official meetings with banks, utility companies, local authorities, housing associations, social security offices, solicitors and even perhaps to court. These meetings would be ad hoc and infrequent, but would need to take place during normal working hours.

We also need to expand our social evenings and the mentoring scheme. That means we will need many more Saturday evening volunteers (and venues), but also to establish collaborative ventures with other London churches and Christian organisations.

We have opened our first office and employed our first paid worker. These will enable us to set up a FreePhone HelpLine for our “clients”, to explore ways of rehousing people who cannot or will not work through the “normal” system, to extend the social evenings, mentoring and advocacy themes, and to provide more support and information for our volunteers. Being an entirely voluntary organisation, we have got used to operating on shoestring budgets, so this new venture (called “Project Pathfinder”) will require a quantum leap in funding.

In conclusion, we seem to be being led to work with the long-term homeless - people who are deeply damaged by tragic events in their lives and/or by years of struggling to survive on the streets. Their rehabilitation will take years, and some will need a lifetime of support if they are ever to maintain a settled existence. We continue to think and pray how ASLAN can develop to help our friends on the streets to achieve this rehabilitation with man and with God.

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RTB with homeless man 88