'Working homeless' use Nottingham winter shelter

A homelessness charity has said people with jobs have been staying at its emergency winter shelter before getting up for work.

Emmanuel House is running a dormitory with 30 temporary bed spaces for homeless men and women in Nottingham.

Its night shelter takes people who can cope with a large communal space and assigns everyone a case worker to help them find suitable accommodation.

The charity said it was seeing much more complex needs, including mental health, financial and relationship problems.

Emmanuel House has been running similar night shelters for about 10 years, but said it had seen people with more complex needs coming in seeking somewhere to stay.

Kelly Harrison, accommodation coordinator, said the people using the shelter include people who had lost accommodation for personal reasons and did not want to lose their jobs.

"We've had delivery drivers, we've had labourers, we've had people that work in warehouses, people that work in care," she said.

"We try to get those people in as quick as we can, so they can sort out proper accommodation.

"We've had people that do really early shifts, so they'll leave at 05:30 in the morning from the shelter, so we organise it with them to organise as much of their routine as possible."

Everyone who comes into the night shelter will be given a case worker and a support worker to assist them.

Izzy Harris, the new chief executive of Emmanuel House, said the hope was to move people "into safe and stable accommodation".

She said the offer of emergency accommodation was a crucial service for people who find themselves in difficult situations.

"I think we make a huge difference," she said.

"Without these 30 beds, where would people be? They would probably be on the streets."

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