A happy New Year

A happy New Year. For most of us it’s hard going back to work and getting back into the routine of things again. After a good break you feel rested and you just want to continue that way. For our clients, the majority of them are desperate to get back to the routine of their lives-albeit a chaotic routine-and that includes coming into Ben’s. When we reopened they were so pleased to see us. All in all there was spoken and unspoken relief we were open again and Christmas was over for another year. They could get back to “normal” and pick up where they were before the break! It was like we’d never closed and they’d put on a comfy pair of slippers after walking around in new uncomfortable shoes for a while. We had a lovely conversation with a client who came in after the break which I’ll share with you, which was to the staff amazing, and gave us a much needed impetus at the beginning of this new year. This gentleman is one of our oldest clients, and he has been rough sleeping for a few years now. It has been very difficult to engage with him, especially regarding accommodation. As it was so cold before Christmas our manager Wendy decided to have another attempt to get him into somewhere to stay. This involved very fraught visits to the Housing Solutions which deal with homeless people. Long interviews and a place at last given, only to find the next morning that he had never turned up!! But Wendy, not known for giving up easily, bit the bullet and went down again with him and this time took him to the accommodation given to him. Amazingly he stayed. But this is the best bit, well to us it is, he came in after Christmas looking so much better. He had been looking very poorly but he then said he had had a lovely Christmas!! He told us in great detail what he had watched on TV and how it was so good to wake up warm and dry in a bed. So to us, and especially Wendy, who had put in such a lot of hard work when she was feeling so tired at the end of the year, this was a lovely precious moment. He continues to do well. It was a good start to the year.