Since the Hermanus Night Shelter (HNS) opened on 1 May 2022 it has gone from strength to strength; people opened their wallets and hearts, and many homeless people were helped.
“There is, as many of you are aware, a huge number of good and new things happening at the shelter,” chair of the HNS Les Abbott said. “It has, however, come at a cost, and cost has been a huge amount of time and effort Graham Wesner and I have put into the shelter management over the last eight months. You will start to see the results of all our hard work in the next few weeks.”
He said one other area where some very important progress has been made is with their social worker, Breggie Smook.
“She has made great strides in the work that she is already managing to do with our shelter guests. This, I must say, is the prime reason for having a shelter – for homeless people in our community. She is giving those who seek to turn their lives around a path to regain their self-respect and be the best person they can be.”
Abbott said the shelter would love to finish Phase 1 of its building programme, which incorporates the new social-work offices, which has just been completed, but there is still a shortage of funds to complete the laundry and effect changes to the guest-intake building. “We have paused the building work for the moment,” he said, “as we do not wish to spend funds that we have ring-fenced for administration and operational purposes on the building work.”
One item that is eating funds is constant maintenance, he said. “We find our residents do not have the same respect for property that we have, and we are constantly having to repair broken taps, toilets, drains, door locks and other items. We are also trying to finish the building work we have put on hold for lack of dedicated funds. We are therefore looking at raising the funds needed to finish this phase of the project.”
The Department of Social Development has also been slow in supplying its quarterly grant to fund its social worker and staff, and the shelter needs to raise funds quite urgently to this end too, to cover itself until the DSD funding comes through.
For more information on what the shelter needs or to donate money, call 083 232 6138. Bank details: Hermanus Night Shelter, ABSA account no 4081927061.
