North East charity opens its second homeless hub
Cornerstone is going to be supporting people in Bishop Auckland
A North East charity's opening its second homeless hub today to support people who are rough sleeping.
Cornerstone in Bishop Auckland say it's been three years in the making but now they can offer food, shelter and other necessities at its new site just behind its preloved furniture store on Finkle Street.
Nicky Morson is from the charity and she said: "It's going to be open Monday to Saturday for anybody who's currently rough sleeping in the area. Bishop Auckland is the heart of our charity. We've had supported accommodation over in County Durham for over 20 years, so we know the area very, very well. We've had this plan in place for over three years.
"We started with our preloved furniture shop which is across the yard and now, due to demand, we've had to push to open the hub as soon as possible. We're finding a lot of individuals homeless in Bishop Auckland, they may be coming from out of area, but it's just giving people the option for the support.
"Our hub is somewhere for individuals to come and seek one-to-one professional support for homelessness and our focus is always going to be homelessness, so when someone comes in, we have disabled access showers available, we have lockers for belongings and we have washing facilities for clothes. We've also got a large kitchen so we can offer people food and drinks.
"If we have individuals who come in who need support for other things like drugs and alcohol, or issues with universal credit, we've got an amazing network of people in the town where we can pick up the phone and speak to them directly. We can literally walk the individuals over because we're so central in the town. We have computer and phone access in here too.
"This is going to be our sister hub from Hartlepool. We deal with big numbers over there so we're all trained and we've all got the experience. We hope it isn't popular, we don't want to say a homeless hub should be popular, but we want to know it's here as an essential part of Bishop Auckland for the safety of the community and to give people the right signposting to the correct support."
The story of John-Joe Hood
John-Joe Hood is a tenant of Cornerstone's supported housing and also a volunteer.
He's hoping to use his own experiences of being homeless to help rough sleepers turn their lives around.
He said: "Back in 2022, I was on the streets for four days and luckily enough for me it was in the summer, but winter's coming up now and I wouldn't like to think about being homeless in the winter. It was really challenging in all ways and my mental health was deteriorating as I'm a recovering alcoholic.
"My life before was really chaotic. I had been in and out of prison and ManHealth spoke to Cornerstone and they got me a place. Ever since I've been with Cornerstone my life's rapidly changed.
"I've always had a mindset when I was 14 years-old to help the homeless and then I got the opportunity and that's what I've done. One of my dream goals was to help homeless people and I just don't like to see people like that, so if I can help people in any way, shape, or form then I'm achieving my goals.
"I feel happy in myself, I'm volunteering five days a week and I really enjoy it. It's the mindset and the positivity in giving back to the community for everything Cornerstone's helped me with, helping me with a house, and I just needed that chance and now I've got that chance so I'm just thriving and moving forward with myself.
"I didn't think for one minute I'd be in this position that I'm in now. I'm so proud that I'm doing it because it's really helped me with my mental health, I'm coming in happy and when I go home I can't wait for the next day to come back to work. It's that stability and on the right track for what I want to do in the future and that's to keep working for Cornerstone."
Cornerstone has a reloved furniture store on Finkle Street in Bishop Auckland, with the homeless hub right behind it.