On 29th September I’ll be representing St. Stephens church and running the Ealing Half Marathon to raise funds for Ealing Churches Winter Night Shelter, the ONLY winter Night Shelter in Ealing.

It provides emergency night shelter over the five winter months for 14 shelter guests. They also provide a dedicated support worker who works with individual shelter guests, to enable them to move into permanent accommodation.

In 2023 ECWNS ran Ealing’s only Christmas night shelter, for 10 nights and they hope to run a Christmas Night Shelter again, this year.

I have been volunteering with the Night Shelter at St Stephen's for many years and so many of the clients have left a lasting impression on me. I've met kind, funny, intelligent, hard working, positive people. People I have things in common with. People just like you and me. When you see the faces behind homelessness you realise it doesn't discriminate. The shelter has welcomed both men and women from teens to pensioners, of many different religions and nationalities and from all walks of life. Homelessness can affect anyone.

Through working at the night shelter I have been lucky enough to witness the good it can do. I have seen many of the clients helped back into a home of their own, helped into employment or education and ultimately given back their dignity.

Ealing has the 4th highest level of rough sleepers across the capital with 563 people reported to be sleeping rough on Ealing’s Streets last year. This is not acceptable and Ealing Churches Winter Night Shelter is working to change that. They can and do make a real difference to the homelessness crisis in Ealing. Please support me to help them. Thank you so much.