The LHF Atlas provides an overview of services supporting people to move on from rough sleeping in London. This includes highlighting the vital work of shelters (often referred to as winter shelters or night shelters). We have recently published a new Shelters map to make this data more prominent and easier to view. Becky Rice, LHF’s Atlas Manager and Mark Brennan, Housing Justice’s Partnerships and Development Manager explain more below.
Unique services
Winter shelters are unique amongst the services represented in the Atlas in many ways. They are community (usually faith based), services with lots of input from volunteers, often alongside a very small staff team, including a Shelter Coordinator. Shelter provision is heavily reliant on charitable funding and utilising resources existing in the community such as buildings and volunteers from local churches. Some shelters also get funding from local authorities and through the government’s Night Shelter Transformation Fund.
Supported by Housing Justice
Housing Justice offers a wide range of support to shelters both individually and as a network. This includes targeted expert advice and support from the London emergency accommodation team; a Quality Assessment Framework programme to support safe and high-quality provision; the Impact Portal to support data collection and evaluation and to use information for policy and campaigning work.
Shifting over time
The traditional shelter model is a basic place to stay for people who would otherwise be rough sleeping or at immediate risk of rough sleeping, typically consisting of communal sleeping areas (usually with a specific area for women to sleep) along with a range of other services. Services usually include a free evening meal and breakfast, access to showers and toiletries, and a link to benefits and housing advice to prevent returns to rough sleeping on leaving the shelter.
Winter and night shelters were radically altered by Covid-19. Communal sleeping spaces were not provided in 2020/21 due to infection risks. The number of spaces decreased and those provided were in self-contained single room facilities for example in hotels, B&Bs and shared houses. This change did not persist; increases in rough sleeping drove a rise in spaces back to pre-pandemic levels as communities and faith organisations sought to respond to the need in their areas.
The landscape is now more diverse than ever with some shelters returning to communal provision, some retaining a self-contained model and some developing ‘low ratio sharing’ models with shared rooms in houses, but not larger communal sleeping spaces.
The Atlas Shelter map
The Atlas has included data on shelters since the website was launched in 2019. The total number of shelter spaces is included in the main London map and shelter services are also reflected in the borough focus map.
While this data was considered helpful, it is a little hidden and Housing Justice and others felt that it could be a stronger feature on the website overall.
Our new feature provides a map dedicated to shelters. The simple visualisation enables users to click on a borough and see which shelters are operating in that area. The screenshot below shows the view when Newham is selected – highlighting the NEWway Project which has 15 spaces in a communal shelter. The listing on the right-hand side also provides a link to the NEWway website.
The total provision for London is shown at the top of the page, with 32 shelters for London providing 512 spaces.
Information shifts over the course of the year. The initial data is provided by Housing Justice to LHF and Homeless Link in November, but adjustments and updates are made during the Shelter ‘season’ (when most Shelters are active between November and March).
Using the Atlas
Housing Justice view the Atlas as the go-to resource to start to grasp the considerable scale and scope of the homelessness sector in London:
“The infographics and drop-down boxes make it easy for anyone to quickly find local services borough by borough. I’m delighted that in addition to the sector’s predominantly statutory and commissioned services, it is increasingly capturing the valuable contribution of the grassroots, non-commissioned, faith and community groups.” (Mark Brennan)
As well as featuring the shelter services they work with, Housing Justice also use the Atlas to support people in search of information.
“Housing Justice are approached and receive numerous requests from a multitude of sources, over the course of the winter season in particular, looking for emergency accommodation and other homelessness support services. This includes individuals in crisis themselves to a whole scope of agencies and services trying to help these individuals such as the police, law firms, prisons and probation services, hospitals, churches and other faith and community groups, refugee and asylum-seeker support services etc. This resource means Housing Justice is able to respond very quickly in signposting people to an array of pan-London help and support wherever they are in the capital. Links to the LHF Atlas also feature on the London Charter website: I need help | London Charter.” (Mark Brennan)
More information about Shelters and how they operate can be found on the Housing Justice website.
The 2025 Atlas annual refresh is well underway and will be launched in March. In the meantime, look out for more blogs about the Atlas website via LHF’s LinkedIn and Twitter accounts and on the website.
If you have comments, ideas or spot an error any time please get in touch with the Atlas team – becky.rice@lhf.org.uk and gareth.thomas@homelesslink.org.uk