News

Churches Winter Night Shelter:  

Along with the local churches, KCAH organised a winter night shelter in February 2009. This proved extremely successful, using volunteers to run the shelters. 22 guests made use of the shelter during the month with 12 being found more suitable accommodation within the month. We are now looking to open a shelter for Winter 2009-10 to cover 3 months. However, this is very dependent on funding.

Donation Thank Yous:

We continue to be well supported by the local Churches and by private donations. Without this support, KCAH would not be able to function. So a BIG THANK YOU! We do appreciate any support we receive, be it through giving - of time or financially - and we are always looking for donations of non-perishable food to distribute to the street homeless and to our tenants. Cleaning materials are always most welcome too so that we can sometimes give our tenants a helping hand in our bid to keep the houses in our Access Project looking spotless!

Volunteers:
A number of people help KCAH with administrative work in the office. Particular thanks to Andy Kill (administration), Bob Bailey (donations and statistical work), Besmira Prozllopi and Cetina Dautaj (book-keeping) and, most importantly, Ed Holmes-Moorhouse for creating this website!

Several Church Home Groups help us with keeping the gardens of our rented houses looking presentable. Thanks to Christ Church, Surbiton and St Paul's, Kingston Hill home groups in particular.

We are looking into how a "buddying scheme" may work where volunteers are paired up with tenants to help them with their particular interests.

Board Members:
KCAH has been fortunate to be led by a strong Chair, Phil Crump, who is ably supported by seven other Board Members who are dedicated to ensuring the success of KCAH. However, we are always looking for more Board Members - if you think this might be something that interests you, please contact Matt Hatton on 020 8255 2439

Annual General Meeting:
This year’s AGM will be held on Tuesday 10th November. The Worshipful The Mayor, Councillor Ian R McDonald will be attending. The Mayor is focussing this year on raising money for homelessness causes in the Kingston Borough.

Funding:
KCAH is over-reliant on the funding of the local churches and also local government grants. We are therefore looking to raise community awareness to the works of KCAH as we are not generating sufficient money to keep KCAH running in its current form beyond a couple of years. We need to expand, not shrink - the demand on our services warrants expansion.

A fund-raising committee has been set up to look at ways where we can attract funding from charitable trusts, local businesses and private donors. If you wish to make a financial contribution to this small, local and unique charity, why not make a direct donation to KCAH on-line at:

www.cafonline.org Just type in “KCAH” as the keyword and then follow the instructions

Hostels:

The Kingston YMCA has continued to work in good partnership with us and we normally refer clients to them on a weekly basis. Sometimes, if the client proves themselves in the Y, they are referred back to us so we can place them in the Access Project.

We also have strong links with other hostels and nightshelters such as Crawley, Woking and Leatherhead.