When, why and how did Footsteps start? In January 1990, the charity started operating from the Youth and Community Centre in Leapale Lane, after a period of planning. The person to whom credit should be given for the idea of a drop-in centre is Terri Jezeph.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In the late 1980s and the early 1990s, unemployment rose dramatically after the worldwide stock market crash of 1987. There was already a growing longer-term homelessness problem which was largely ignored, and many people were sleeping rough in towns and cities across the country.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
This problem was very evident in Guildford. Both local and national newspapers illustrated the point in photos and articles very vividly.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
What could be done to relieve the problem in Guildford itself? Led by Terri who wanted to respond to this crisis and take a pro-active position on tackling homelessness. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
The first drop-in centre opened in Leapale Lane. It was to open on Sunday evenings, initially in two shifts: the first from 5.45 pm to 8 pm and the second from 8 pm to 10 pm. The charity was called\u00a0Footsteps<\/strong>, the name being the inspiration of an early volunteer, Linda Record. Terry White was invaluable in getting the most distressed people into the centre, who could then shower and receive a clean set of clothes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Footsteps had expanded to include volunteers from other town centre churches and the wider community. We continued to provide food, clothing, newspapers, showers, friendship and, if possible, advice. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Today, the volunteers have to keep up with ever-increasing regulations to cover matters such as food hygiene, first aid, drug awareness and anger management, in addition to health issues.<\/p>\n\n\n\n We have just recently celebrated 35 years of helping the homeless in our community.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" When, why and how did Footsteps start? In January 1990, the charity […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"template-full-width.php","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-11","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/footsteps.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/11","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/footsteps.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/footsteps.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/footsteps.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/footsteps.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=11"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/footsteps.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/11\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":939,"href":"https:\/\/footsteps.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/11\/revisions\/939"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/footsteps.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=11"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}