Shropshire Masons supporting charities for the homeless

More good news to follow earlier grants totalling £10,000 given to Shrewsbury Homes for All, including match funding by the MCF and the SMCA. The new announcement is timely, coinciding with the recent cold ‘snap’ which has seen some of the harshest conditions for homeless people since the pandemic began.

Once again the Masonic Charitable Foundation has matched the grants made by the Shropshire Masonic Charitable Association to two of the County’s charities working to help those homeless or facing homelessness. The Ark in Shrewsbury and Maninplace in Telford will each receive £4,000 to help with their work. Both charities are dedicated to providing support, advice and shelter to the homeless and vulnerable whose needs are greater than ever this winter during the coronavirus crisis.

Based in Shrewsbury, The Ark provides much-needed day care and drop-in facilities for those struggling with homelessness or who have issues they find themselves unable to deal with, as well as those who are friendless or acutely lonely.  They have in recent years been constrained by the premises they occupy, but have now managed to buy premises next door which will allow them to expand the range of services they can offer to include vocational training for clients, provide rooms for emergency overnight use and, ultimately and ideally to try to extend to offer a small number of self-contained flats for their most vulnerable clients. The £4,000 grant will allow for the construction and fitting out of a disabled toilet and washroom.

In Telford Maninplace has over its period of operation been able to acquire 16 properties, which offer 106 units of accommodation for those who are homeless but who don’t qualify for, or have difficulty accessing, local authority support and care services. The causes of their difficulties are many and various and have been thrown into sharp relief by the current crisis, with such a need for everyone to be reached for coronavirus testing and vaccination. Few if any those Maninplace work with are able to be contacted: test, track and trace systems are all but impossible for such clients whilst the vaccine they need is rolled out through the NHS, with which many clients have no contact and which therefore can’t contact them. The grant of £4,000 will help the charity with the provision of a monitoring and a positive engagement program which aims to help identify and work towards achievable goal for this under-served section of society.