Lunchtime Care Van
Progress Report
August 2014
1 BACKGROUND
The idea for a daytime Care Van project arose from a desire to make better use of the van; a resource which is used every night of the year, but never during the day. Although the Care Van Steering Group was keen to pursue this possibility, it recognised the importance of investigating whether a need existed within the city for a daytime service and if so, what form it would take. A volunteer, Kirsty White, was commissioned to carry out a feasibility study and recommend what type of service was needed, if any. She spoke to existing Care Van volunteers, service users of the evening Care Van and staff and service users from other agencies that work alongside rough sleepers and those considered vulnerable to homelessness. Two things became apparent: Firstly, that there was a lack of free food available around lunchtime, particularly on Saturdays; and secondly, that those who are homeless and have been housed in B&Bs by the Council often have little or no access to cooking facilities. Other options for services that were considered were a mobile food bank, a housing advice service and a clothing bank. It was decided that a service that handed out a free lunch best fitted the needs that had been identified and that the existing advice resources available on the van would be developed.
A proposal was submitted to the Executive of Bethany Christian Trust and full support was provided to run a six month pilot for three days a week.
2 PREPARATORY PERIOD
2.1 Recruitment of a Coordinator
A Lunchtime Care Van Coordinator was recruited from an internal and external pool of applicants. Subsequently Ruth Longmuir began her role on Monday 7 October 2013. This allowed four weeks of preparation before the pilot operation commenced on Monday 4 November. It was decided to run the service on Monday, Wednesday and Saturday lunchtimes. The feasibility study had identified Saturday as a day that did not have much free food provision and it was felt that the two weekdays chosen spread the service across the week.
2.2 Recruitment of Volunteers
The volunteers in the existing evening service are almost entirely in church teams but there is one Composite Team made up of volunteers either from a church with no Care Van team or of volunteers with no church connection. Bethany receives a lot of requests from individuals who are keen to work directly with homeless people and so it was decided to design this project with that opportunity in mind, as far as this met the core aim of the project, to relieve the suffering and meet the long term needs of homeless and vulnerable people. Therefore a mixture of church teams and individuals were sought. Every church with an EH postcode that Bethany had contact details for was emailed with a promotional poster and offered a talk about the Care Van and/or Care Shelter. Information was also sent to existing Care Van and Care Shelter teams to recruit whole teams as well as individual volunteers. A good number of volunteers responded and 29 attended the first induction on 30 October.
It was decided that Mondays during November would be staffed by Alasdair Bennett (Group Head), Cameron Black (Care Van Manager) and Ruth Longmuir. This reduced the number of volunteers needed to start the project and gave more time for further recruitment. It also allowed those shaping the project to see it first hand and develop it as the month progressed.
2.3 Sourcing Food Supplies
The food to be given out needed to be sourced at no cost and so various cafes were approached to see if they would donate their leftover sandwiches/pastries that would otherwise be wasted. Pret A Manger agreed to donate leftover sandwiches, wraps and baguettes from their shop in Hanover Street and Patisserie Florentin in Stockbridge to give pastries and croissants. Because the cafes make their supplies fresh every day, the food remains fresh for use the following lunchtime, particularly as it is refrigerated overnight.
Food is collected by a volunteer every Sunday, Tuesday and Friday, i.e. the night preceding the Care Van outing. We ask volunteers to commit to being on the rota once a month. Any gaps are filled by staff members.
Fareshare, a food redistribution project, deliver food to the Care Van the morning that it goes out. The delivery varies depending on what is in stock but often includes fruit, individual cold drinks, yoghurts, cakes, biscuits, crisps, savoury snacks and sometimes more sandwiches. Fareshare kindly do not charge us additionally for this service but include the delivery within the daily one to Bethany Christian Centre, as this is where the Care Van is based.
Tea, coffee, milk and sugar are provided by the volunteers.
3 PARTNERSHIPS
The Care Van is a joint project between Bethany Christian Trust and Edinburgh City Mission. This partnership was developed in 1991 when Alan Berry, founder of Bethany, and Bill Chalmers of the City Mission started taking an old caravan out at night and feeding the city’s homeless. Twenty-three years and three or four vehicles later we now have our purpose outfitted van that is today’s Care Van. Two representatives from Edinburgh City Mission sit on the Steering Group alongside two from Bethany and two volunteer representatives.
As mentioned above, partnerships have been formed with Pret A Manger, Patisserie Florentin and Fareshare. Pret A Manger are keen to have all of their stores partnered with a charity and so were delighted that we were able to work with the closing times of the Hanover Street store. This had been a barrier to them finding a charity partner previously. Patisserie Florentin were also very happy to give their food to the homeless. Years ago they had a casual arrangement to support
homeless people and they were keen to revive their involvement in feeding those who are homeless in Edinburgh.
Existing partnerships with churches across Edinburgh and the Lothians were strengthened in creating this project. The teams that volunteer for the lunchtime Care Van are also either involved in the evening Care Van or Care Shelter.
A new dimension to this service is the incorporation of corporate volunteers in the rota; two spaces on the van a week are set aside for volunteers from various companies. This has been really successful in terms of volunteer experience and also in their contribution to the Care Van service. Volunteers have been enthusiastic and have given their all when volunteering. Companies that have provided volunteers are Lloyds Bank, Bank of Scotland, Nationwide Building Society, Tesco Bank, Studio LR, Eteaket and Arco. Currently there are corporate volunteers lined up until February 2015: they are from Scott- Moncrieff, Crowne-Plaza Hotels, Tesco Volunteers with Erica, founder of Eteaket Bank and Citi Bank. The links with these companies are made by Ann McLaughlan, Bethany’s Corporate Fundraiser. Providing an opportunity to volunteer with a front line service is beneficial to these relationships, and as mentioned above is of great benefit to the Care Van service.
4 VOLUNTEERS
A good number of people have come forward to volunteer and more people are coming on board all the time. Currently there are seven teams involved (five from churches and two groups of friends) and forty-nine individual volunteers. Now that we have a good pool of individual volunteers we plan to group them into self-organising teams. This will not only cut down on the work the coordinator has to do to arrange the rota but will also make filling last minute cancellations much more efficient and effective. Some willing team coordinators have been identified and it is hoped that a number of new teams will be up and running in the near future.
There are ten volunteers who do the food collection circuit; seven of whom also volunteer by going out with the van. Mostly they volunteer once a month on a rota but some have opted to do it more often. We also have an admin volunteer who inputs Volunteer Information Forms to our volunteer database and inputs the statistics from the Lunchtime Report Forms.
5 CLIENT GROUP
5.1 Service User Backgrounds
Those that use the service do so for a range of reasons. There are those who are rough sleeping and do not know where their next meal is coming from. Others are homeless and have been housed by the Council in temporary accommodation such as a hostel or B&B. Some hostels do not provide meals during the day and most B&Bs don’t have kitchen facilities for residents. Many who are staying in B&Bs are required to leave their accommodation during the day and often struggle to afford to buy lunch in town. Where we see people begging or selling the Big Issue we approach them and ask if they would like a free lunch.
There are some that attend the van that have moved on from their homeless situation into a flat of their own but find it difficult to pay bills and buy food. Due to recent welfare reforms people are having their benefits sanctioned more often and more easily. Very quickly people have no money for food and can often end up in debt. The Care Van is a vital service for these people.
For others, the food is a welcome help but it is the friendly faces of the volunteers and the social interaction that makes a difference to them. Often homeless people are lonely and isolated; they feel passed around between services and rejected by the public who walk past them on the street without a second glance. When service user surveys were conducted as part of the initial feasibility study, there were many positive comments regarding the social interaction aspect to the service. The volunteers, the majority of whom are Christian, show love to the service users by making them feel valued and cared about. This means a lot to those individuals. In the surveys, service users were asked what they liked about the Care Van and one person responded, “Meet up with people, a wee bit banter...different volunteers therefore different chat”. Another stated that it is a place to make friends. The volunteers were referred to as “welcoming and friendly”, while another person said that they “cheer you up”.
5.2 Gender
The vast majority of those using the service are male. In recent months the percentage of females has been around 15%. The largest number of females in any one day was eleven. The chart below shows the numbers of males and females using the service across the nine months that the service has been running.
Gender of Service Users
600
500
400
Male 300 Female
200
100
0
April May June July March January February NovemberDecember
5.3 Nationality
Statistics on the nationality of service users are also kept. Volunteers are asked to estimate nationality without intrusively asking the person on each occasion, consequently the categories are very broad. This is done partly because many service users from Poland or Romania speak very little English and also many are regular customers and would not appreciate being asked every day which country they are from just so that we can tick the correct boxes. Service users tend to be either “British” or “Eastern European” and a third category of “Other” includes Irish, Spanish and any other nationalities the volunteers come across. The chart below shows the percentages of the three different categories of nationality of service users. Nationality of Service Users
100%
80%
60% Other
Eastern Eurpoean 40% British
20%
0%
April May June July March January February NovemberDecember 6 DEMAND
The number of people accessing the service grew consistently from the beginning of the project until Christmas, with an average number of 21 service users per day across this period. Over Christmas and New Year numbers were lower and particularly so on New Year’s Day. The Lunchtime Care Van did not operate on Christmas Day but did promote a large, all day event run by Crisis Skylight. Perhaps it would not be wise to operate the service on New Year’s Day again although circumstances have changed since then. There is now a wider awareness of the service and with generally increased numbers, even a low turnout would make it worthwhile. Numbers were low over the festive period partly due to the time of year but also the awful weather that coincided with some of the outings.
Since January, numbers have continued to rise with a peak of 69 people attending the van on Monday 26 May. A publicity leaflet was distributed to agencies across Edinburgh in February once a firm route had been established and this has had a significant impact on service user numbers.
The table and chart below show how numbers have risen since the start of the project.
Total number of Average number of Month lunches lunches per day
November 211 18
December 271 23
January 284 22
February 248 23
March 505 36
April 512 39
May 532 41
June 549 42
July 591 45
Average Number of Lunches Served Per Day
50 45
45 41 42 39 40 36
35
30 23 23 25 22 20 18
15 10
5
0
April May June July March January February November December
The rising numbers have meant that sandwiches have sometimes been in short supply. This was initially overcome by halving the packets of sandwiches and by providing more accompanying snacks which are always in plenty supply. Finding additional sources of sandwiches proved challenging as supermarkets sell their sandwiches right up until the Use By date, rendering any leftovers as unfit for consumption. Therefore sandwiches have to be from somewhere that makes them fresh every day, but in advance and not to order. It was discovered that another of the Edinburgh Pret A Manger stores recently lost its charity partner due to the shop extending its opening hours. We have therefore also entered into an agreement to collect sandwiches from the store on Castle Street. There are now plenty of sandwiches to meet demand.
7 ROUTE
Originally the plan had been to have two main stops; one in the city centre and one at Leith Links. Finding suitable stopping locations proved problematic due to the busy nature of the two areas at lunchtimes and also the need to find somewhere that is consistently free on the two weekdays and a Saturday. Approaches were made to many organisations, businesses and churches with car parks or hard standing on their premises but none agreed to the Care Van stopping there, with the key challenge often being the Saturday distribution. The service started with the Care Van driving a route through the city centre and stopping wherever people were seen to be in need of a free lunch ie. those who were begging, selling the Big Issue etc. Over the course of the first couple of months the route became more established and one very clear stop became apparent. This is on Leith Walk, just north of McDonald Road and is particularly popular because a lot of homeless people congregate in
McDonald Road Library during the day. By December there were regularly over 10 service users at this stop awaiting the van and this number rose to a high of an average of 25 people per day in June. Interestingly numbers are now dropping slightly at the Leith Walk stop and increasing on Waverley Bridge. Leith Walk is still by far the busiest stop as can be seen in the following graph.
Average Numbers at Each Stopping Location
350
300
250 Waverley Bridge 200 George Street West End
150 The Bridges
100 Leith Walk
50
0
April May June July March January February NovemberDecember
There were discussions with the City of Edinburgh Council regarding finding a suitable stopping location at Leith Links but unfortunately nothing has come from this. Although generally in favour of the project, those at the Council were unable to identify somewhere the van could safely pull off the road that wasn’t too close to a school. They suggested stopping somewhere on the road might be the best plan but when this was investigated before the project began it was not possible to identify somewhere that was consistently available.
The current route is as follows: 12.20 Travel from Jane Street in Leith to first stop at Waverley Bridge 12.30 Waverley Bridge 12.40 Travel along George Street stopping wherever there are people begging Then to King’s Stable’s Road via Lothian Road and into the Grassmarket Then up Victoria Street, onto George IV Bridge and along Chambers Street 1.40 Stop on North Bridge just after the junction with the Royal Mile 2.00 Stop on Leith Walk outside the old Shrubhill House building 2.30 Return to Jane Street
Timings are approximate
8 FEEDBACK
In general, service users have been very appreciative of the new service and many have come to expect the van on the three days it operates. A lot of people have known the van from its evening route and have expressed delight at seeing it during the day. It has been encouraging to see their reaction to the news that the van now also operates on three lunchtimes a week. “Thank you for your hospitality” and other expressions of gratitude are often recorded in the Lunchtime Report forms.
The CEO of Bethany Christian Trust, Iain Gordon, has said the following about the project:
“Since its launch the lunchtime Care Van has provided much needed food and support to hundreds of people, living in B&Bs in the city, who would otherwise go without. It has been both inspiring and humbling to receive such generous support from a corporate sponsor and local volunteers. Often the simple acts of providing something to eat and a kind word of support can be the catalyst to a transformed life.”
Similarly, Lawrie Hudson, the CEO of Edinburgh City Mission, has been supportive of the lunchtime Care Van:
“We have been delighted with the reports over the last nine months from the Lunchtime Care Van Team. Like the evening Care Van, we get positive reports from the service users who really appreciate the extra effort we are making. There is a mixture of roofless homeless and those staying in council accommodation. Unfortunately this is a growing need but it does allow those who operate the van to show God’s love for the users in this very practical way. We are grateful for all the help received to make this first nine months possible.”
The volunteers see firsthand the impact the Care Van makes and this contributes to what they gain from volunteering, and their enjoyment of volunteering. One contact person from a company that sent volunteers over the course of one month emailed and asked if they could all be involved again. She said, “Everyone enjoyed their experience on the van and found it hugely rewarding with a valuable insight into life on the street.” One regular volunteer said how much she enjoys meeting the other volunteers, “Everyone is lovely - I'm just really enjoying the Care Van”. And another volunteer described it as “very rewarding” work.
A team leader has described how two of her team members take days off work to be able to go out with the van at lunchtime. They are from a church that also has an evening Care Van team but they are really drawn to the lunchtime service. They particularly enjoy getting to know the regular service users that come to the Leith Walk stop. Recently there was a comment in the Lunchtime Report that it was good to see “John” back at the van – he hadn’t been seen in a few weeks and that particular volunteer had been concerned for him. It turns out he had been ill but is doing much better now.
One volunteer who went out weekly with the Care Van for three months said the following in her exit interview:
“I have a new outlook for the future. I used to be scared of homeless people and my goal coming here was to learn more about them. I would now speak to them like I am talking to you or my friends. I have learned so much from them and have had my outlook transformed. It has been a wonderful experience – thank you so much!”
9 FUTURE DEVELOPMENT
Now that the service is fairly well established we are looking at the possibility of increasing it to four days a week. Some investigation needs done into which day would be the fourth day but based purely on existing volunteer numbers Sunday might be the best option. We have a larger number of volunteers who are available on Saturdays than for the two weekday outings and so it seems likely that they are also available on Sundays. However, a lot of volunteers attend church on a Sunday morning and may find it difficult to be in Leith for 12 noon.
Two things will make the transition to four days much smoother: Firstly, grouping the individual volunteers into teams so that a team is allocated a date rather than coordinating 5 individuals. Secondly, incorporating the food collection into each team’s responsibilities will remove the need to organise a separate rota of food collection volunteers, and the responsibility for solving any problems regarding sandwiches will rest with the team. These efficiencies will allow the coordinator to have time to recruit and train additional volunteers, publicise the fourth day and organise the revised rota.
10 FINANCES AND RESOURCES
The project’s budget anticipated start-up costs and management charges that we have not needed to apply and therefore we have been able to utilise the £17,500 restricted donation to cover one month of planning costs and an expected 10 months of operation, planned up till the end of August 2014.
We have successfully utilised existing office space in one of our care services, which incorporates utilities, desk space and telephone charges. We purchased a laptop, fridge, new urn and cool boxes to assist in the provisions for the project, and we also use a storage area for dry goods in the same care service, at the back of Jane Street, where the Care Van is parked. The rest of the finances relate to salary and employment costs. We have established going forward that the project can be delivered with £1,500 per month overhead costs.
11 THANK YOU & CONCLUSION
We trust that this report has demonstrated how vital a service this is to those who are homeless and vulnerable in Edinburgh. Bethany Christian Trust and Edinburgh City Mission are very grateful to our funders for their very generous initial donation to fund the pilot and for agreeing to fund it for an additional year until the end of August 2015. Although the service users don’t know who funds the project they regularly express their thanks to the volunteers on the van for the service provided. There are often comments in the Lunchtime Report forms stating how appreciative the service users were. If they could meet the funders, we are sure that they would wish to express their appreciation to them also.
Demand for the service has continued to rise over the nine months as more people have heard of its existence. Similarly, we are still regularly contacted by volunteers
seeking to become involved, whether individuals, church teams or corporate volunteers. We are pleased to have established links with many partner organisations in the city whether through volunteering, donating food or promoting the service. The lunchtime Care Van reaches out to those who may not otherwise have any lunch that day. It provides not only a full and nutritious lunch but also an opportunity for service users to interact with volunteers who passionately care for them and their wellbeing. The frequency of the comments of appreciation and gratitude demonstrate the value of the service from the service users’ perspective, and the feedback from volunteers evidences that it is not only the service users who gain from being involved with the project.
All of these elements combine to ensure significant benefit to the City of Edinburgh and the individuals in critical need within its streets, from this new service having been pioneered and established. The pilot has been a huge success on every level, and it is our intention to build upon the strengths already established and take the service forward in the coming year, seeking to show Christ’s love in action to the most vulnerable in society.