When the coronavirus crisis escalated back in March, we continued providing meals for homeless people for as long as we could. We switched to serving takeaways outside, to safeguard our guests, volunteers and staff. But eventually we were instructed by the authorities to stop altogether.

Since then, we’ve been operating UR4Jobs, UR4Driving and UR4Counselling remotely, working with clients online. UR4Meals has been closed since March.

So we were really pleased when we were able to start serving meals again, on 23 July. We’re now providing takeaways on a timed slot basis, with guests receiving their food outside. Rigorous health and safety procedures and PPE measures are in place.

At the moment, we’re keeping things on a small scale – in the first eight days we served 62 meals – so we can test our systems, but we’re expecting numbers to rise as the word spreads that we are open again. We also plan to have a limited number of clients for the other projects attending on site.

The majority of homeless people have been housed in hotels during the crisis. This demonstrates that with resolve and money the problem of homelessness can be addressed. We are now consulting closely with the council to find out what will happen when these people are returned to the streets – not to mention those who will become homeless or vulnerably housed when they lose their jobs because of the virus.

There has been quite a lot of funding made available during the crisis, so we are in a decent financial position. However, fundraising is likely to become more challenging over the next few years, so any support will be very much appreciated. Testing times for everyone are doubtless ahead, and we are doing all we can to ensure we are well placed to tackle them.