25 years of Winter Night Shelters at Glass Door Homeless Charity

It's World Homeless Day 2025, a day where people and organisations all over the world acknowledge the progress that’s been made in preventing and ending homelessness. So, we're taking the opportunity to mark 25 years of running our Winter Night Shelters.

From November to April each year, we operate three Night Shelter circuits across the boroughs of Kensington & Chelsea, Hammersmith & Fulham and Wandsworth.  

Our Emergency Winter Night Shelter provision offers each guest a safe place to sleep, a hot and nutritious evening meal, and a friendly and welcoming environment created by a team of shelter staff and volunteers. Our shelters also provide an important link to our Casework Service – offering an opportunity to build a route out of homelessness. 

The history of our night shelters 

Over 25 years ago, a small group of people representing different church denominations came together to see what they could do to reduce the growing number of people sleeping on the streets in their boroughs. Caroline Kennedy, one of the charity's founding members, recalls what brought the group together:  

All the churches were being approached at this time by rough sleepers who needed food and shelter, and most shop fronts on the Kings Road were occupied overnight.  

The group called themselves "West London Churches Homeless Concern", and their first project was to research and produce an information card listing local resources to hand out to people sleeping on the streets. 

The first night shelter network opened its doors in January 1999, thanks to seven churches agreeing to take turns hosting people overnight in their halls one night a week. On the first night, held at the Chelsea Methodist Church in January 1999, no one turned up. But word soon spread.  

For the first decade after 1999, the work was focused on providing a local winter night shelter in churches around Chelsea (one each night of the week), with hearty food and a genuine, warm welcome. As an important signal of the openness and warmth we intended, everyone who used the services were called “guests”, rather than clients. 

My friends on the street said, you must come and try out the night shelter. I went there and I was so overwhelmed by the kindness, it was fantastic, and I have to say there have been many, many times when, if I hadn’t been able to come into the night shelter then I don’t know what I would’ve done. It’s like a rock for so many of us.

 - Angela, Glass Door guest from 2010 

Every year, more churches joined the inter-denominational network, meaning more individuals experiencing homelessness could find a safe and warm environment during the coldest months of the year. 

Over time it became clear that while the guests appreciated the daytime services and overnight shelters being offered, many wanted to end their period of homelessness. Many needed support to move on to more secure living.  

In response, we developed a Casework Service, which got under way during the 2007/2008 winter night shelter season. 

In 2013, supporters joined the charity's first Sponsored Sleep Out in the Duke of York Square, raising enough money to run another shelter circuit during the 2nd half of the winter season, and in the winter of 2016-2017, a third circuit of night shelters opened in Wandsworth. In January 2018, another seven churches in Richmond joined the Glass Door network.  

What happens in our night shelters? 

Once guests are welcomed into the night shelter, they receive a sleeping bag to keep and use during the length of their stay, and we provide sleeping mats. At the shelters, guests are provided with a hot and nutritious three-course meal, a safe place to sleep, breakfast in the morning, and access to our Casework Service.  

Volunteers support the night shelters by preparing all the food that is served to our guests. They are also really important in creating that welcoming atmosphere and environment in the night shelters. Some of them will be responsible for serving hot drinks, welcoming guests at the door and then sitting down and sharing the meal with them and talking to them throughout the evening.

 - Corin, previous Volunteer and Involvement Manager 

How far we’ve come 

When we first started, we were partnered with just 7 churches, ran for 12 weeks in winter, and offered a total of 2,300 sleep spaces. Now, we’re proud to partner with twenty-one churches across three London boroughs and offer up to 105 people a welcoming and safe space to sleep every night for five months across our three circuits. That’s 14,833 sleep spaces – showing just how far we’ve come. 

Our shelters are operated by trained seasonal shelter staff and around 800 volunteers, as well as our year-round Casework and Operations Team. In 2023-24, we launched our Women’s Night Shelter for the very first time, and it was a great success. Today, we’re going into our third year of providing gender-informed spaces and services, with three night shelter circuits (a mixed-gender circuit, a men’s circuit and a women’s circuit) and a weekly Women's Casework Drop-in to support our Women's Shelter guests. 

Why our night shelters are needed more than ever 

In 1999, when Glass Door’s first shelter circuit opened, the government’s official rough sleeping count was just 635 on a single night. By autumn 2024 – when the latest annual government data came out – the count had risen to 1,318, more than double the number of rough sleepers on a single night compared to when we started.  

And of course, these figures only include those people who happen to have been counted on a particular night; it is widely acknowledged that the published numbers grossly under-represent the true picture. This shows that our emergency night shelters are needed now more than ever. 

Our shelters open on November 10th this year, and we look forward to welcoming everyone who turns to us for support this winter season. 

Watch our 2024 Shelter film to find out more about how the night shelters work and what a typical night looks like.