We were delighted to welcome Ian Foster and Lewis Gates as this week’s PIE at Lunchtime speakers.

Both Ian and Lewis are part of the London based homeless charity Glass Door. Glass Door is London’s largest open-access network of emergency winter shelters and support services for both men and women affected by homelessness.

Ian spoke to the pupils about the services that Glass Door provide, as well as the effect that the pandemic has had on the homeless community in London.

During the winter of 2019-20, Glass Door provided emergency shelter to 829 individuals whilst their army of volunteers helped cook and serve up over 30,775 hot meals. Between June 2019 – 31 May 2020, their six drop in centres provided support and advice to 1,434 individuals and helped 243 guests access housing and 67 individuals work. As a result of the pandemic, unfortunately all of their 34 night shelters have been closed due to shared air space and only two of their six drop in centres have been able to remain open.

As the Government’s ‘Everybody In’ initiative – introduced during the pandemic to provide shelter within hotel rooms for individuals sleeping rough – is now drawing to a close, Glass Door will be providing Covid-safe single occupancy rooms in hostels to individuals to help replace the shelters that cannot yet re-open.

As the nights grow longer what better time to learn about Glass Door and support the fantastic work that they do.

Click here to find out how you can get involved.