Focus on town's homeless during Wellingborough prayer walk

People who are homeless or at risk of it will be the focus of a prayer walk in Wellingborough.

Wellingborough Street Pastors along with local churches are organising the event on Sunday, October 16 to mark National Homeless Awareness Week.

The event will be used to pray for ‘our town’ and specifically those who are homeless or in danger of becoming homeless.

A spokesman for Wellingborough Street Pastors told the Northants Telegraph: “We will be stopping at various places en route to pray for the homeless and those at risk.

“At The S&H (formerly The Euro Hotel) we will pray for two homeless people who died there.”

The hotel’s new name stands for Seen & Heard, which was decided in consultation with the family of Jonathan Upex who was found dead at the hotel on New Year’s Eve in 2019.

A report following the 46-year-old’s death found that agencies missed opportunities to protect the homeless man and rarely understood his pattern of crises.

Those taking part in the prayer walk will meet up at the Market Place by All Hallows Church from 1.45pm on October 16.

The walk will leave the War Memorial at 2pm and it is anticipated that it will take on average 10 minutes to reach each stop, with each stop being for about five minutes.

Stops along the route will include Nations, Lothersdale House (Job Centre) in West Villa Road, the Daylight Centre in High Street, Market Street, Swanspool House, Wellingborough Police Station and S&H in Midland Road before returning to the Market Place for 4pm.

Churches in Wellingborough are publicising the prayer walk, with a number of ministers leading prayers at the stops.

The walk will be marshalled by Wellingborough Street Pastors, who will be in uniform which includes hi vis clothing and they will also have first aid kids and water.

While it is often difficult to assess the number of homeless people at any one time, official figures for Wellingborough from the annual count carried out say there were 10 people in 2018.

Figures for the number of people registered as rough sleepers with the town’s Daylight Centre say it was 85 for the same year (2018).

During the pandemic, local authorities were instructed to house all rough sleepers, but sadly there are always some who fall through the net.

Wellingborough Street Pastors regularly speak to and support people in need and on a Saturday night earlier this month, they engaged with four rough sleepers in Market Street and were made aware of others outside of the town centre.

With colder weather on the way, the prayer walk is being held at a time when not only the town’s homeless need support but also the organisations trying to help them and keep them safe this winter.

More details about Wellingborough Street Pastors and their work in the town are available on their Facebook page, which can be found here.