{"id":518330,"date":"2025-10-22T00:47:08","date_gmt":"2025-10-22T00:47:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/518330\/"},"modified":"2025-10-22T00:47:08","modified_gmt":"2025-10-22T00:47:08","slug":"glasgow-homelessness-and-community-support-initiatives","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/518330\/","title":{"rendered":"Glasgow Homelessness and Community Support Initiatives"},"content":{"rendered":"

Frontline workers encourage students to get involved<\/strong><\/p>\n

People make Glasgow, and nearly ten-thousand of them are homeless, reports statistics from Glasgow City Council\u2019s 2024\/2025 Demographics and Needs Profile<\/a>. At present, 43% of Scotland\u2019s rough sleepers are Glasgow-based<\/a>. One local charity has boots on the ground, providing a helping hand to those in need.<\/p>\n

In a brightly-lit building on the corner of Crimea Street and Brown Street, a stone\u2019s throw from the River Clyde, the scent of lavender tea fills the air. The distinctive hum of a food processor and clanking cutlery hint at meal prep. Floor to ceiling windows display passersby battling the elements, the grey sky contrasting sharply with the warmth of the spacious interior. Pedestrians who happen to glimpse inside see a massive motif of Christ on the far wall.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

Elyse MacKinnon and Joanne Gray are seated at one of Glasgow City Mission\u2019s (GCM) long, white dining tables. Elyse, Winter Programme Manager, has spent nine years overseeing GCM\u2019s She previously worked with impoverished communities in Los Angeles, California. Joanne spent twelve years managing an East Kilbride community centre before joining GCM last year.<\/p>\n

Both women believe in Glasgow City Mission\u2019s ethos, bettering the lives of those who come through its doors. They say that GCM\u2019s staff and volunteers work tirelessly to help meet the needs of the city\u2019s unhoused population, but there\u2019s always room for more hands on deck.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

What would say are some of the largest misconceptions that people have about homelessness in general, and more specifically homelessness in Glasgow?\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

E: <\/strong>I think that people are misinformed. We are in a housing crisis. People are talking about asylum seekers and refugees coming to Glasgow, putting us in a much worse position, but we\u2019ve always had limited options for accommodation. The individuals who have been granted refugee status are really keen to be employed. People will assume that the homeless want to live off of taxpayers\u2019 money, but the majority of people that we\u2019re seeing coming through here want to be in employment. The rules are so restrictive for them that if they\u2019re in temporary accommodation through the council, they can only work up to 16 hours per week. People want to work, but it\u2019s just not a financial option for them while they\u2019re currently in the homeless system.<\/p>\n

J: <\/strong>I also think one of the misconceptions is that people have chosen a life of addiction. One gentleman that I spoke to recently, one of our guests, he\u2019d fallen into alcohol addiction a couple of years ago when his wife passed away. He couldn\u2019t cope with that period of trauma in his life, and he turned to alcohol. He then found himself locked into addiction. I don\u2019t think that anyone sits at school and when asked \u201cwhat would you like to be when you\u2019re older?\u201d says \u201cI want to be an addict. I would love to be a drug addict.\u201d\u00a0 Nobody chooses that life, and I think the common misconception is that people want to be in the position they\u2019re in. People don\u2019t want to be there. People don\u2019t want to be in that situation. They\u2019re caught in that situation and you\u2019re here when they make that choice to try to break free from it. We want to be here to help them.<\/p>\n

Let\u2019s talk about the youth. A lot of university students are quite young\u201425 and under. When I was that age, I wouldn\u2019t have thought of a homeless person being 18, 19, or 20. I would picture a homeless person being someone in their 30s, 40s, 50s, or older. You don\u2019t have to speak about specific cases, but have either of you dealt with youth homelessness?<\/strong><\/p>\n

E:<\/strong> Typically, I would say that those experiencing homelessness would generally fall between the 35 to 45 age bracket. However, because we are seeing an increase in refugees coming to Glasgow, a lot of their ages are younger, so they would be in that early 20s category. They\u2019ve had to travel from war-torn countries. They\u2019ve managed to get into the UK, gone through the asylum process, been granted refugee status, then they end up in Glasgow. A lot of them are younger, and we\u2019re seeing a bit of hopelessness within them, purely because they\u2019ve had to give up so much when they come here. They\u2019re not allowed to work when they\u2019re in the asylum process. They can get moved around, then they come here and get stuck in the homeless system. That\u2019s four or five years that they\u2019ve not been able to integrate themselves into a community, so they start to lose a bit of hope, and I think that\u2019s a big challenge.<\/p>\n

Have you seen instances of university students seeking assistance? How can students assist if a peer is facing a rough time?<\/strong><\/p>\n

E:<\/strong> It\u2019s really easy to become isolated\u2026If I had a bunch of young people in this room right now, I would tell them to make sure they\u2019re looking out for the people in their classes. We don\u2019t actually know what people are going through in their personal lives. We see a glimpse of people when they come to college or a class in university, but we don\u2019t actually know much about them. That person could really be struggling and, if you recognise something, just go alongside someone and say \u201cyou actually seem a wee bit down today? Do you want to talk about it, or can we go for a walk or go for a coffee?\u201d I think that would help a lot of people who may be finding themselves in situations like that, because they often won\u2019t want to tell anybody what they\u2019re going through.\u00a0<\/p>\n

J: <\/strong>Part of my role at Glasgow City Mission is to engage students from universities in the work that we\u2019re doing. So I was out at University of Glasgow during fresher\u2019s week. We try to engage students in the work we\u2019re doing because it is important, and students are really excited about social justice. It\u2019s important that we are able to provide them with opportunities to make a difference. For students at the University of Glasgow, please get in touch with us and see what areas you can get involved with\u2014we have our dinner service where you can sit and spend some time with people. You might be the only person someone speaks to that day, and it matters. We\u2019ve got so much engagement from people in their forties and older, but I think it\u2019s so important that students can see what\u2019s going on in their own city and have an impact.<\/p>\n

To learn more about Glasgow City Mission, visit https:\/\/www.glasgowcitymission.com<\/a><\/p>\n

or email info@glasgowcitymission.com<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Frontline workers encourage students to get involved People make Glasgow, and nearly ten-thousand of them are homeless, reports…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":518331,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[7826],"tags":[748,12450,168856,918,168857,4884,61822,6332,712,16,120674,15],"class_list":["post-518330","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-glasgow","tag-britain","tag-charity","tag-community-outreach","tag-glasgow","tag-glasgow-city-mission","tag-great-britain","tag-homeless","tag-homelessness","tag-scotland","tag-uk","tag-unhoused","tag-united-kingdom"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/115415065839696145","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/518330","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=518330"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/518330\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/518331"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=518330"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=518330"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=518330"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}