December 11, 2018 5.04 pm This story is over 72 months old

“There’s a bed for everyone”: Volunteers cease homeless outreach

The group say that it enables people to make bad choices
| Photo: Connor Creaghan for The Lincolnite

A group of Lincoln volunteers have stopped homeless outreach because they say it enables people to make bad choices.

Hope – Lincoln is a group of volunteers that helps homeless people to get off the streets, just like Eddie.

They have stopped doing homeless outreach but will continue to help those that have “fallen through the gaps.”

In an announcement on their Facebook page, the group’s leader Chris Lanoix wrote: “We are changing how we operate, and as such we will no longer be doing outreach.

“The reasons we are ceasing outreach are various. The main reason is that there is a bed for everyone currently in Lincoln.

“We have always believed in empowering our friends and the way we see things is that outreach just enables people to stay out on the streets and make bad choices.”

Chris Lanoix chatting with Eddie. Photo: Steve Smailes for The Lincolnite

The group are no longer taking volunteers and say that after recent policies were put in place by the City of Lincoln Council, there’s little for them to do at night.

Chris continued: “Sometimes the unpopular decisions are the right ones. It takes a lot of courage to recognise a flaw in the way you operate and to adapt to the changing needs.

“Our whole aim was and still is to alleviate rough sleeping and to educate the public about the issues surrounding rough sleeping in Lincoln.

“In order to do that we stand by our decision to stop our current form of outreach.”