It’s easy to take small daily choices for granted – like what to wear, what to have for dinner, or what book to read in the evening.
But these choices can be stripped away for someone experiencing homelessness.
Many people in temporary accommodation don’t have access to a kitchen to cook in. Those without a fixed address can’t borrow library books.
Our community kitchen, Cook Up, and mobile library, Turn a Corner, help to give back these small choices for people experiencing homelessness.
Regaining the small pleasures of cooking your favourite meal or reading a page-turner can also make a big difference in people’s lives.
In this section: • Turn a Corner • Cook Up • Sammy's Story • Big Locals •
Turn a Corner
Turn a Corner is a mobile library that supports people experiencing homelessness. We visit three London locations weekly, ready to have a friendly chat as visitors check out our well stocked selection of books.
To plug other gaps in services, we also provide daily essentials like reading glasses, socks, and toiletries.
This year we:
- took the library out on 82 days
- provided conversations and essentials to 770 visitors
- loaned out 461 books
- gave out 247 pairs of reading glasses
People experiencing homelessness lack the proof of address necessary to take out library books.
This is not needed at our library, which is continually refreshed based on what visitors most enjoy reading. There is something for everyone: fiction and non-fiction, easy reads and books in different languages.
By taking time to get to know our visitors with a friendly chat we can find out how to help them in the way that they most need.
One visitor was able to get a job after we found work boots for him that he requested. Another found a job after reading one of our books on business and finance.
Cook Up
After a successful pilot, we launched Cook Up which provides access to a kitchen for people without one, including those experiencing homelessness or living in temporary accommodation.
We run weekly community sessions in a professional grade kitchen. Participants get to choose their own meals and ingredients. They then cook a meal together with support from our staff and volunteers if needed. The lively, friendly atmosphere in these sessions was described by one participant as “like a festival.”
Afterwards participants eat together as a community or take away batch meals. Many participants are asylum seekers and live in temporary accommodation and share batch- cooked meals with others there.
This year we helped 52 people to cook their own meals together over 20 sessions, who cooked an estimated 1,004 portions of food.
Sammy's Story
“It’s food with love. And that makes a big difference.”
Sammy is a 23-year-old from Nicaragua who loves to cook. He came to London on his own as an asylum seeker. He was living in a hostel without access to a kitchen where he had the “same food every day” and found his health worsening. So, he jumped at the opportunity to join Cook Up.
At his first session, he made a Nicaraguan dish of rice, beans and plantain that reminded him of home. This small act had a big impact:
“It’s wonderful you know, when you’re cooking your food, you remember why you’re here what is the reason that I come asylum…and they give strength to continue.”
The community he found there became “like a family” to him.
“You feel grateful when people are laughing in the kitchen. Because you feel human again, you feel human and that is the most important thing.”
“And this is like medicine, like a therapy. You are coming and sharing. That is improving your mental health. Your soul, your spirit.”
Throughout the many sessions Sammy attended, he continued to sharpen up his cooking skills. He was so successful that he started training to become a cookery class teacher, with the opportunity to teach others his national dishes.
“When I was [first] coming, I really was in the darkest moment of my life. But now I’m leaving like I’m a different person."
Big Locals: increasing choice for local residents
We provide support to four communities in London who have received funding through the Big Local initiative, run by Local Trust. These are Aberfeldy Big Local, Pimlico Million, Plaistow South Big Local and Barnfield Big Local.
Each project can use the money to provide opportunities to their local communities, led by the residents themselves, and supported by QSA. Because each community is different with different needs, each project varies in its approach and activities:
-
Aberfeldy Big Local ran a joint Eid and Easter celebration, as well as providing sewing classes for women of Bangladeshi origin
- Pimlico Million ran a community radio project and children’s music lessons
- Plaistow South Big Local and Barnfield Big Local were distributors of small council grants for food, clothes, white goods and energy to help with the cost-of-living crisis