Three month Winter Night Shelter update

Glass Door Homeless Charity has been providing emergency winter night shelters for more than 20 years and operates the UK’s largest network of open-access winter night shelters for people experiencing homelessness. Our 2025/26 season of winter shelters opened on 10th November.  

Open access means that anyone, regardless of their background or circumstances, can come to us for support. We run three night shelter circuits across Kensington and Chelsea, Hammersmith and Fulham, and Wandsworth. 

For the third consecutive year, our shelters are organised into three circuits: mixed-gender, men’s, and women’s. In addition, we host a weekly women’s drop-in casework session to provide dedicated support for guests staying in our women’s shelters. 

Each circuit offers up to 35 people a safe place to sleep every night, along with a hot evening meal, breakfast the following morning, and access to our Casework services. 

We're now three months into our 2025-26 night shelter season. These are the insights from the frontline: 

• 1,136 people have been referred to our shelters.  

• 392 guests have stayed in the shelters, of whom:  

• 57% were men, 42% women and 1% non-binary or prefer to self-describe.  

• 77% were previously sleeping rough.  

• The youngest was 18 and the oldest 78. 

• 38% were under the age of 35. 

• The average length of stay in the shelters has been 21 nights.  

• 266 shelter guests have engaged with our caseworkers, of whom 55 have already been moved towards more permanent housing, 27 have received financial support and 19 have been connected to health services.  

Just over three weeks after the shelters opened in November, we had to temporarily close referrals for men because of the level of demand for shelter places. Our waiting list then got down to the point where we were able to re-open referrals for men. 

Read our previous blog from two months into the shelters. 

Stay tuned for updates every month.