Devoted To Helping The Homeless

Lisa Moodie shares how her team work tirelessly to help people sleeping on the streets in London to find security and safety

- SUSIE KEARLEY

Lisa Moodie works for the homeless charity, SPEAR London. In her role as Outreach Operations Manager she takes to the streets with her team to find and help people who are sleeping rough and who could benefit from the charity's assistance.

"I've spent 25 years working in the charity sector," explains Lisa. "I worked with children and young people first, running gang teams to try and stop people from getting involved in that lifestyle. I've also worked with disabled people and ethnic minority groups.

"I wanted to expand my repertoire and a lot of people I worked with were facing homelessness or insecure housing, so it was an area I was already interested in.

"I joined SPEAR London and set up a new team around homelessness prevention. We helped people resolve some of the issues that can lead to homelessness. After that project was set up, I moved into outreach with the charity."

The outreach teams go out in the early mornings and late evenings to find those sleeping rough, hoping to make connections and build trust so that together, they can agree a plan to get people the support they need and eventually, to find them accommodation.

Lisa explains, "Sometimes people aren't ready for accommodation right away. So we make a plan for a pathway off the street. If they have a chaotic substance abuse problem, they may need to go to detox and rehab before they're ready to go into accommodation.