NEXT ORGANISING MEETING SUNDAY 23rd JUNE

LITTLE RED CREATIVE STUDIOS

 

‘LUTON COMMUNITY’

We are a group of Lutonians who have had more than enough of walking past homeless and destitute people living on our streets, sometimes outside perfectly good buildings that have been sitting empty for years, and we want to do something about it.

BRITISH HOME STORES

Originally we came together to lobby an ‘off shore trust’ that owns the long time empty BHS building in George Street. We wanted their agreement to community use of the building as a homeless shelter for people to sleep, shower, eat and be supported by the community instead of being abandoned, moved on, arrested, assaulted or forced to beg for money to eat. The solidarity shown was awesome, with volunteers piling in to offer our time, support, services and love, which is just what’s needed to make this work.

ORGANISATION

Far from being a quick fix we hope a project like this offers a lasting solution to help end the scandal of people forced to sleep and live on the streets. So it will take some time, staying power and needs to be properly organised.

Work teams to staff the project have been formed, to assure ourselves and the owners of any suitable building that we, the community, have the capacity and commitment needed to run a project like this. (If you’re not already in the groups you can join by clicking ‘groups’ on this website).

A delegation to lobby the owners has also been formed and a ‘meanwhile lease’ drawn up to present to them (a meanwhile lease contains standard landlord and tenants rights and is a legal agreement to make temporary use of buildings until it is filled by a commercial tenant).

BHS HAVE LET THE SHOP TO NEW TENANTS

Just weeks after Luton Community came together, the owners of BHS moved sharpish to let the shop and it is now has new tenants. Even though it’s yet another pound shop (yawn) at least it creates jobs, improves the look of the town centre and it isn’t such an in the face insult to homeless people anymore. This ‘we best get things moving sharpish‘ response from the owners was half expected tbh so after a discussion at the second Luton Community organising meeting a few other potential sites were flagged up for further investigation.

ANOTHER PROPOSAL IS IN THE PIPELINE

Having looked into the suitability and availability of the sites proposed at the 2nd meeting they are sadly non starters for a few reasons (size, shape and likely to be let soon) so another ( more permanent?) proposal has been made by members of this group.

This will need to be researched and discussed by the whole group at our next meeting so please do your best to come along to share your opinions and thoughts on this.