The Winter Night Shelter Milton Keynes is a year-round charity helping people at their point of crisis. We support; rough sleepers; sofa surfers; individuals and families in emergency accommodation or temporary housing; and anyone at risk of homelessness across Milton Keynes.

Sadly the need for our services is growing with around 250 people helped every week. Our dedicated Welfare Team see families, men, women; those fleeing domestic violence; those who have lost jobs and can no longer pay for accommodation and others struggling with their mental health.

Now, as a result of the ongoing cost of living crisis, we are seeing a sudden rise in the number of Hidden Homeless needing our support. This is anyone temporarily staying with family/friends or anyone they know, to avoid having to sleep out on the streets.

From relationship break down and job losses, through to domestic abuse and mental health struggles; everyones' individual circumstances are different. However, a commonality in this type of situation is that people are often holding on by their fingertips, treading the fine line of trying to live as normally as possible day to day, whilst struggling with the relentless pressure that they may soon run out of suitable and safe options to keep a roof over their heads.

To highlight the issue of hidden rough sleepers in Milton Keynes our big winter fundraising event this year is to challenge people to spend 24 hours experiencing life as a homeless sleeper. The idea is to get together with your co-workers, club members, friends or family and gain sponsorship for living homeless for a day. This could include organising to sleep in your office/ school hall etc. overnight and then living on the bare minimum of food, drink, and comforts as possible. We hope is that this will give a slight insight in to the conditions some people are finding themselves faced with, whilst also raising valuable funds to ensure that we can be there to support anyone who finds themselves living this as a reality.