Glasgow Winter Night Shelter (WNS) is a service that offers a crisis response and respite for homeless people in Glasgow seeking accommodation. It is a third sector initiative led by Glasgow City Mission and a range of partners who offer services that are important to homeless people, especially in the winter months when service users can be most vulnerable. The partners include Turning Point Scotland, Glasgow Homeless Network, Simon Community, Community Safety, Police, Shelter, Lodging House Mission, Govan Law Centre, Street Pastors, Homeless Nursing Services and from last year the Partnership’s Out of Hours Service. 

The WNS is located at the Lodging House Mission in East Campbell St. The service begins at 10pm every night (including weekends, Christmas and New Year) from 1 December 2018 to 31 March 2019. The service has a capacity for 40 individuals who are offered a bed for the night in warm surroundings with breakfast in the morning.

Service users are informed about the support services across the city with the Partnership’s statutory Homeless Service workers directly involved each night. This means we can engage directly with service users offering a more proactive service, more effectively building relationships with the most vulnerable service users, who in the past were less likely to engage with statutory services, and offering immediate accommodation solutions. 

The WNS also has direct access to the Partnership’s Hunter St. medical facility for homeless people. Appointments are freely available for WNS attendees first thing in the morning, and a nurse from Hunter St. is also present in the Lodging House Mission every morning from 8am-9am for direct access by service users. Homelessness Social Care Workers are also available daily in Hunter St. offering service users homeless assessments and access to accommodation.

Last year saw a new ‘Winter Initiative’ from the Scottish Government asking “What can we do to reduce rough sleeping this winter?” It very much enhances what we already do in the WNS and in other areas of winter work with vulnerable homeless people to keep them safe. 

Jim McBride, Head of Adult Services (Homelessness/Addictions/Criminal Justice) said “The Winter Initiative in Glasgow includes additional funding to improve and further integrate interagency street networking. This involves increased collaborative working with a range of statutory and voluntary homeless street agencies and the provision of funding for modest ‘personalised budgets’ for homeless people. This funding can much more effectively provide for immediate needs and help homeless people move off the streets and into accommodation much more effectively and quickly.”