The Arclight Centre

The Arclight centre is on Leeman Road, across the road from the national railway museum. Since becoming a Councillor, I wanted to find out more about what the centre does.

The centre is a hostel for the homeless who have links in York. Some residents are from York and the surrounding areas, some have lived here for a number of years and some have family here.

Last Sunday I volunteered here for the first time. Jim Banks, a joyful man with great sense of humour and confidence, greeted me.

Jim came originally from Bradford and has lived all over the world. He was cooking burgers, chips, gravy and beans for York’s homeless.

It was my job to flip the burgers into the buns and to wash up. I also served some food to the residents.

As a Councillor I obviously sit in meetings that approve large-scale programs to help people. However, very little of the time I get to see delivery or what many would consider as front line action.

This is why it was so rewarding to be doing something that you knew was making a difference now… not in the future, not may be later, but now.

The residents were polite, well mannered and cleaned up after themselves. I was surprised at the lack of bravado portrayed by the residents, which is sometimes symptomatic of some of their mannerisms in town.

I think therefore that those few who do act in this manner, do so not out of malice, but as a self-defence mechanism. If it were I, I had lost family, friends, a home and a job, lost everything – I too would put up a false barrier between society and myself. Society rejected me, so I would reject society.

In the Arclight centre it is not like that. The volunteers are embracing the residents as members of society, giving them courtesy and so returning the residents’ dignity. Therefore the barriers fall.

All of the people who pass through the Arclight centre are someone’s son or daughter, Mother or Father.

When it is spelled out like this and you are humbled, you realise that there should be no objection to centres such as the Arclight. If it were your child, would you not want somewhere for them to go? If it were you, would you like somewhere to go? Some people will say some of these individuals brought this upon themselves, drinking, and drug taking. That may be so, but people make mistakes, human beings are not perfect and everybody deserves a second chance.

Volunteering is one action that can be done to make a difference now. However more support is needed to happen at a higher level to reduce the dealing with homelessness and instead try and stop it from occurring in the first place.

I hope to volunteer again at Arclight and I hope others do so too.