The Christmas Roof 2000 Setting up - the building
West London Initiative on Single Homelessness

The Roofs take many months of planning, a network of volunteers set up fundraising events; recruit volunteers to help before, during and after Christmas; seek donations from corporate sponsors and individuals and inform local organisations working with homeless people about the service. These have to be coordinated to ensure that we have everything we need by December. In the past we have been grateful to recieve:
 

Transportation - vans, trucks, minibuses and cars Portable shower units Kitchen equipment Medical and Dental equipment

Carpet Food Clothing Books and games

• We have even had a banner sign donated, welcoming visitors to the ROOF.

The 2000 Roof was held at
the Wilson & Kyle building,
81/87 High Street,
Brentford,
Middlesex.
It was kindly lent to us by STRATAL LTD care of Jansons & Partners.

Getting the building ready

We confirmed that we could use the building in late November. The first priority was to survey the building, plan the  layout and the installation of heating, showers, toilets, phones, kitchen and other amenities which were lacking. Setting up is different for every site, some require more work than others. This year, the disused warehouse was in a poor state of repair, having sufferred from vandalism and neglect.
	It needed a lot of work to make it welcoming for our Christmas guests.

We  arrived "on site" on Saturday the 2nd of December, and a small group began work on the building that was to be the site of the 2000 Christmas Roof.
The first prorities were to make the building secure and this mean't fixing the broken or replacing non-existent doors.

The floors were strewn with broken glass