Volunteering in the sector

Volunteering for a homeless organisation can be hugely rewarding for the volunteer, and make a real difference to people who are homeless and the organisations which support them. If you're interested in volunteering, this page suggests some questions you should ask yourself to identify the right opportunity for you.

Many people who are homeless have problems not just with access to housing but in other areas such as mental health, drug or alcohol use, loneliness and isolation, domestic violence, prostitution, financial problems, time spent in prison, and difficulty finding work, education or finding constructive ways to spend their time. Homelessness affects not just the people you see sleeping on the street, but many thousands more sleeping on friends’ floors, living in accommodation that isn’t safe or that they’re at risk of losing, or living in hostels and other temporary accommodation. This all means that there’s a lot of help needed, and a wide variety of volunteering opportunities available.

What do I have to offer?

Think about what skills you could bring to a volunteer role. You don’t have to have any direct experience of working with homeless people: you might be a good listener, know about housing law, or have experienced homelessness or other personal challenges yourself and feel you have something extra to offer. Direct work with homeless people isn’t the only way to contribute: do you have skills you could bring to fundraising, campaigning, research, service improvement, or becoming a trustee? Whoever you are there should be a volunteer role which makes use of your particular skills whilst also helping you gain new ones.

You also need to be clear about how much time you can give to volunteering and how long you are able to commit to. Homeless organisations will expend valuable time and resources on your volunteer placement, and will expect commitment in return.

What do I want to gain?

Think about what you want to gain from your volunteer experience. Are you looking to give something back, or are you hoping your volunteer experience could lead to a career in the homeless sector? If you are interested in paid employment, you can find our briefing on 'Working in the Homelessness Sector' here . Volunteer work can be an excellent way of gaining work experience and finding out whether you enjoy working in this field. You might want to ask organisations you approach whether they provide training, what supervision or mentoring arrangements are in place for volunteers, and whether the organisation provides any traineeships or other routes to develop your career. Looking at specific placements you should also consider what informal learning opportunities the placement will provide, and what range of skills and experience you will be able to develop. For instance a placement might appeal because of its clear learning structure and support offered to volunteers; or because it offers an opportunity to learn about substance misuse and mental health, as well as housing issues.

What do I want to do?

If you’ve already answered the first two questions you should be halfway to identifying what kind of role would suit you. A volunteer role involving direct contact with homeless people could include anything from befriending, advice, listening, practical tasks like cooking a meal, running groups and activities, shadowing appointments, to helping service users make calls or complete forms, and much more. Which activities you are able to undertake will depend on the type of service where you choose to volunteer, so it may be worth exploring some of the different types of service which offer support to homeless people. You can find more details on the different service types in our briefing on Working in the Homelessness Sector.

Hostels are the first step off the street for many homeless people, and volunteering in a hostel could offer a good opportunity to build relationships with individual residents and to develop skills for future employment. Volunteering with a street outreach team could give you an insight into why people sleep rough and how they can be helped towards a home. Many day centres are under-resourced and rely on volunteers to help with serving meals and other practical tasks, as well as getting to know service users and offering activities.

If you have a particular interest or skill to offer (for instance legal training) you could also consider volunteering for an advice service or for a specialist project. Some projects focus on a particular client group such as young people, prisoners, homeless foreign nationals, or people with mental health problems; others offer particular activities for homeless and ex-homeless people such as gardening projects, work training, art or theatre projects, although some day centres and hostels will also provide these kind of volunteer opportunities.

You may also want to think about the kind of organisation that you would like to be part of. Most organisations supporting homeless people will be charities although some may also be provided by the public or private sectors. Think about whether you work best in small or large organisations, whether you would like to work for an organisation with similar values to your own (for instance, a faith-based group) and whether you would like to have an impact on your local community or further afield.

Where shall I start?

When you’re ready to start looking for a placement, you can approach organisations directly to see whether they take on volunteers, or look for advertised volunteer positions. The website do-it.org carries many volunteer vacancies provided by local volunteer bureaux; you could also approach your local volunteer bureau directly. Homelessness sector vacancies, including a small number of unpaid posts, are advertised in the Guardian ‘society’ section on Wednesdays, local newspapers, and websites including charity jobs,  jobs go public,  jobs in charities and Inside Housing.

Crisis and Housing Justice, with the support of the Mayor, have recently published a new directory detailing a range of volunteering opportunities across the homelessness sector in London throughout the year. View it here.

The website Homeless Pages lists organisations that work with homelessness and also allows you to see organisations listed by specialist subjects such as alcohol, care-leavers or day centres. You could use this site to identify services and approach them directly. You could also contact your local council or use the internet to search for services which are local to you.

Good luck and enjoy volunteering!