#LeamRocks campaign tackles homelessness in Leamington Spa

To mark World Homeless Day on Tuesday October 10, LWS has run a week-long campaign to raise awareness for the problems faced by homeless people in Leamington Spa.

As part of the #LeamRocks campaign to spread the word, volunteers and guests decorated pebbles with bright colours and designs with the campaign hashtag and hidden them around Leamington. The aim is to get people who find the rocks to upload the images on social media and encourage more people to get involved.

Many locals have already discovered these around town and uploaded the photos with positive messages onto Facebook and Instagram.

The campaign also ran a number of events including a Games Night at the shelter (a regular event on Friday), a bucket collection Saturday on the Parade and a pub quiz at Sydenham’s grist mill on Sunday.

The LWS Night Shelter was originally set up by two medical students from Warwick University support the homeless during winter in 2015/16, and is a non-profit organisation run entirely by community volunteers. It is open Fridays and Saturdays from 7.30pm to 10.30am.

Around 17 people sleep there on a regular night, when the shelter provides food, sleeping bags, medical attention and events such as games night.

Susan Rutherford, one of the former Warwick medical students who founded the shelter, told the Boar that shelter will soon be moving when planning permission is granted to turn the current base by the Leamington canal into student accommodation.

The LWS organisers are launching a fundraising campaign to continue the project.

Homelessness support is also provided by Helping Hands charity, which runs a soup kitchen and charity shop by the church, as well as the Salvation Army’s Way Ahead Project, led by Brunswick Green Party councillor Jonathan Chilvers.

A report by the Warwick District Council last year found that the number of applications for homelessness support had significantly increased, while cases of homelessness reduction or presentation was found to be well below the number three years previously.

Warwick and Leamington Labour MP Matt Western said the problem meant that “planning, housing and property departments must work together pro-actively to re-use property rather than responding to commercial or “market” needs.”