MENTAL distress and drug addiction are major health challenges facing Belfast’s “rough sleepers”.
People’s Kitchen founder and independent city councillor Paul McCusker told this newspaper approximately 50-70 people, from teenagers to senior citizens, are “sleeping rough” all over Belfast every night.
Over 15 years ago, inspired by working as a healthcare assistant at the Mater Hospital A&E, the Ardoyne man decided to do something more to help people facing homelessness and addiction.
His plans for nursing training were parked, as volunteering with the old Welcome Centre and St Patrick’s soup kitchen, and being an Oldpark councillor became his way of “making a difference”.
In 2017 the People’s Kitchen was born, starting as a tea trolley in Donegall Street, to today’s operation at 1 Antrim Road at Carlisle Circus.
“We have an open door policy,” Paul said. “Anyone can present. People who are rough sleeping, people from hostels, people from the community who are struggling, people who are isolated, people who maybe live in accommodation but are lonely.”
People’s Kitchen has no statutory, core funding, but through grants and donations it provides emergency accommodation, emotional support, over 1,200 meals a week, including breakfast for rough sleepers Monday to Thursday, dinners on Friday and Saturday evening, and seven nights a weeks the team is out in their van allocating hot meals, sandwiches, sleeping bags, tea and coffee, and more.
On the life or death situations that People’s Kitchen volunteers witness, Paul said: “Last night we had a bad overdose of a lady in her 30s who almost passed away but thankfully we were able to get her to hospital.
“The biggest challenges we see are mental health, and IV drug use. People injecting crack cocaine has increased massively. And drug related abscesses, wounds and infections are common among people we help.
“We will keep doing what we are doing to help, and coming into the winter months our winter plan will kick in.”
Paul said Westminster’s Northern secretary Chris Bryant visited the People’s Kitchen recently, and while he didn’t quite commit to Andy Burnham’s pledge to “end rough sleeping”, did say there would be “investment to reduce it”.
Retired social worker Helen O’Brien, originally from Ballymena, but living in North Belfast for over 25 years, is a People’s Kitchen volunteer and trustee.
“I like to be able to operate at the strategic level as well as on the ground. Lobbying (for a night shelter) and highlighting the issues, doing funding applications and trying to get us the resources that we need.”
Helen spent much of her working career in inner city Dublin so is more than familiar with issues around poverty, deprivation and homelessness.
“The profile of a homeless person is definitely changing,” Helen said. “We are dealing with an awful lot of addiction, mental health and trauma issues, much younger people and especially younger women. It’s not the old man with the bottle of wine any more. And we have no real services and rehab facilities.”
HELP IS AT HAND: Helen O'Brien at the People’s Kitchen van
Helen praised the support provided by Paula Reynolds and her team at the Belfast Charitable Society, saying without them People’s Kitchen wouldn’t be able to operate.
“They are our biggest source of funding with grants that keep us afloat.
“Without them I don’t think we would be operating at the minute.”
From their 1,500 sq ft base on the ground floor of the old Antrim Road bank they are providing over 1,200 meals a week, shower facilities, clothes, emergency accommodation and food parcels, sleeping bags, toiletries and laundry services.
They host the Belfast Trust’s Health Hub, a Universal Credit pop up, and people coming in from a variety of agencies, like Extern.
With just one shower and one toilet, no office, and only old bank vaults for storage, Helen says they are “desperate” for a 4,000 sq ft new building.
“The dedication, compassion and willingness of our volunteers from all sides of the community is out of this world and just so inspirational,” she added.
West Belfast woman Claire O’Neill from Lagmore via Andersonstown is a jobs and benefits office employee who splits her working week between West Belfast and the People’s Kitchen in North Belfast, where she is also a volunteer team leader.
“Everybody just gets on, and gets stuck in to help,” she said.
“When you see people coming back and doing well it’s all worth it.”
She added: “Hope is a big thing for me. You always have to hope.”
For more visit https://peopleskitchenbelfast.org
