New Facility - Room at the Inn @ Museum Street

Brian Monaghan, Chair of the Trustees of ‘Room at the Inn and Y Project’ would like to express the thoughts of the Trustees & Management Committee, who wish to announce that out of the pandemic has come a unique opportunity for ‘RATI & Y Project,’ staff to use their years of experience to provide in a recently refurbished building, supported accommodation for up to 24 individuals.

The support will be tailored to the needs of the individual, preparing them with relevant life skills and the opportunity to move on and live independent lives. This facility will be known as ‘Room at the Inn @ Museum Street.’ This moves us away from our traditional provision of an emergency night shelter, to the next stage of the journey of a homeless person, who with our partners provides them with life skills, coping mechanism’s, support with mental health and addictions, develop their employability, and prepare them for ‘move on’ with there own offer of accommodation in either the private or public sector. Individuals may live in the project for varying periods of time, until ready to move on. There will be many strands to the support this project will needs to provide, in empowering residents to develop and live an independent life. The Trustees would like to thank all of our staff and partners who worked long hours potentially at risk at the Travelodge Hotel Warrington with volunteers from the public who stepped forward to support and assist in the strategic task of getting service users from our night shelter and those who were street homeless into a safe accommodation, where they could self isolate were necessary.

We would like to give our thanks to Warrington BC for having the confidence in commissioning us to provide and manage the service. To Encircle Housing for developing the building and working with us in managing the facility. We want to endorse the gratitude of the council in giving thanks to all of our partners and individuals who made the Travelodge work, and successfully prevent an outbreak of Covid within the homeless community while giving them food, comfort and safety.

The ‘Room at the Inn & the Y Project’ is one registered charity born out of the Warrington YMCA, which is now sadly closed. The ‘Room at the Inn’, known by many as ‘RATI’ is now transferring the majority of its staff from the provision of the 10 bed emergency night shelter at Winmarleigh Street to the new 22 bed facility in RATI @Museum Street. Covid 19 has changed many things including the suitability of the small dormitory type sleeping facility, commonly referred to as sleeping pods. This cannot meet the needs of the street homeless, not allowing for self isolation should there be reinfection in the future.

The ‘Y Project’ has always related to the day time service, providing support, advice, representation and links to other much needed support services for street homeless and those who may not be homeless but are living in poverty. This service was suspended at the commencement of Covid lock down. The Charity’s Trustees and management committee are currently looking at what type of service we can provide out of Winmarleigh street, taking account of Covid restrictions, Government guidelines and a wider risk assessment. We and many other charities and authorities believe there will be a greater demand for our day services over the next twelve months. We wish to work in wider partnership with the Council and others to introduce a service fit for purpose for all groups at risk of homelessness and poverty.

To all those that have supported ‘RATI & the Y Project over the ten years of our existence, whether financially or in many other ways, please continue your interest. All aspects of our Charity’s work needs your support, more so now in enabling us to be relevant and to respond to future demand.