Friendly chatter can be heard over breakfast tables while the smell of cooking in the kitchen pours into the dining room. “Thanks Love” says one of the hungry diners as he picks up his tray for the serving hatch. “You’re welcome” replies a friendly voice.
Toast, beans and bacon might just be a breakfast hangover cure for some students, but at Sheffield Cathedral’s Archer Project the most important meal of the day could be the most important meal someone has ever had.
Looking around the dining room, I feel like I could be in any one of Sheffield’s city centre cafés, but in fact my fellow diners include rough sleepers, drug and alcohol addicts, prostitutes and asylum seekers.
Many of these people have one thing in common, they are all homeless.
Since 1990, The Archer Project has been cooking up breakfast for some of the city’s most needy people. Their doors are open at 8.30am each morning for anyone to enjoy a free breakfast with someone to talk to.
The centre serves over 10,000 free breakfasts every year, as well as providing 4,000 subsidised hot lunches for just £1. But the project is far from just a meal service. It offers some of Sheffield’s most vulnerable people a place to wash, study, and receive health care.
Last year the project moved into a purpose built centre within Sheffield Cathedral offering shower facilities, teaching rooms and areas for the homeless to socialise. The centre even offers phone, internet and postal services in a bid to stop the homeless from becoming isolated.
Lisa, aged 19, came to the project a few months ago after sleeping on the streets of Sheffield since she was 18-years-old.
While thousands of people her own age were enjoying Sheffield’s student scene, Lisa was sleeping in the doorways of the city centre shops most of us spend our student loans in.
A former drug addict, she has made a personal recovery after visiting the centre, now volunteering in the kitchens while taking an NVQ qualification.
“It can be very scary out there on the streets,” she said.
“Thanks to the people around me, I’m getting myself straight and have turned my rough sleeping around. This is the only place where homeless people can just walk in and get help.
“The staff have been through things like drugs before and can help. They don’t judge, they just make you feel welcome.”
Lisa is one of 12 former rough sleepers who are taking qualifications and volunteering at the centre, while others are benefiting from basic maths and literacy lessons.
Jamie Rose, aged 30, ended up on the streets when he was just 21. He spent five years sleeping rough and became addicted to heroin.
Now volunteering at the project, Jamie says the centre was invaluable to him during his time on the streets.
He said: “It’s the small things like offering people a hot shower and laundry service that just shows that someone cares about them. Providing a hot meal helps people socially as well as physically.
“It gives rough sleepers a chance to sit down and chat as well as getting a good meal. If these people weren’t getting a meal here they would starve or steal it.
“We can act as a good signpost to other agencies, helping people with drug and alcohol problems and with getting housing and benefits.”
Jamie himself faced the vicious circle of homelessness, becoming involved in drugs and crime.
“When you’re on the streets people turn to alcohol or drugs because it helps you get by. You get drawn into a circle and I can see now how bad it was for me. It’s thanks to places like this and God that I’m where I am today.
“My drug use was getting out of hand and I mugged someone using a lot of violence. I ended up in court and was quite rightly given a big prison sentence. Although it seemed bad at the time, the five year sentence was a Godsend.
“When I was in prison I did various different courses and found my faith in God. The prison system worked for me because I wanted it to. Once I came out, I knew I didn’t want to get back into the vicious cycle of sleeping rough.
“Getting off drugs is the easy part, it’s moving out of the social circle which is difficult. It’s hard for homeless people to break out of the street community.”
With the recession forcing more people out of their homes, charities have warned that homelessness is a growing problem in Britain.
The Archer Project helps around 50 homeless people each day in Sheffield and while Jamie feels the council could do more to help; he says rough sleepers must shoulder some responsibility themselves.
“The council could do a lot more to help the homeless in Sheffield, but where does the buck stop?” he said.
“It’s down to the individuals to want to change their lives and take the responsibility themselves. Help is available for everyone.”
With the centre only open during daytime hours, Jamie says it’s sometimes hard to see users return back to the streets to sleep rough at night.
He said: “In an ideal world we would have beds here so they could stay, but it’s a matter of funding. We try to do as much as we can to help people find accommodation.”
The Archer Project is funded through charitable donations and profits from the Cathedral conference centre, with the project organising a range of events with the support of high profile speakers.
Last Friday, members of the local business community attended a conference featuring Sheffield MP David Blunkett, who is a vocal supporter of the project and feels other community projects could learn from the way the Archer Project uses former users as volunteers.
He said: “This is a fantastic project; it’s impressive to see people coming through the system and working as volunteers.
“Throughout my life I’ve been a big believer that you get more out of life if you put more in. People who have been through homelessness have invaluable experience to help others; I think it’s vital to the community but also to the individuals.
“It’s a two way street and people can learn so much about themselves and the world in general.”