Deputy Mayor opens new Drop In Service
23.07.2007
The Deputy Mayor of St Albans, Councillor Geoff Harrison, officially opened the new Drop in Service for homeless and vulnerable people in the St Albans on Monday July 23, 2007.
The new Drop in Service is a complimentary service to the Open Door Night Shelter. The project is held at the Open Door night shelter in Bricket Road, St Albans and is open between 1pm and 2.30pm Monday to Friday.
Deputy Mayor Geoff Harrison said: “It gave me great pleasure to reopen this valuable service for homeless and vulnerable people in St Albans. It was a sad day when we had to shut this service as a result of funding cuts by the PCT.
“From speaking to some of the people using the scheme you really understanding the importance of this service and I would like to congratulate everyone who has worked tirelessly to get the centre reopened.”
At the centre service users can access health care advice, resettlement advice, counselling and can be pointed in the right direction for other professional advice. Light refreshments are also available during the afternoon sessions.
The service is open to a wide range of people who may be experiencing housing issues. This includes existing and former service users of Open Door, people who are vulnerably housed and experiencing difficulties and people who are sleeping rough.
Margaret Lewis, Chair of the Open Door Trust, said; “The new Drop in Service has been launched to fill the gap of the ‘Day Centre’ that used to be run from the Night Shelter. We are all very excited about the new Drop in Service and would like to thank the local community who have helped us raise sufficient funds to get the project up and running. We would particularly like to thank the family of the late Edwin Hudson who have kindly donated the Edwin Hudson Welfare fund to the project.”
The new scheme is a partnership initiative between the Open Door Trust and HPCHA who manage the night shelter.
‹ Back