C R A W L E Y OPEN HOUSE
helping the homeless and disadvantaged
 

HISTORY    

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1982 The project was based in Spencers Road and opened as Crawley Community Resources Centre. The project’s aim was to provide an advice and resource centre for those suffering from the effects of homelessness, unemployment, loneliness and discrimination.
   
1990 Overnight accommodation was provided for the first time. This was in the form of emergency cold weather beds.
   
1994

On Christmas Eve, a small number of redundant site offices were sited on the ground at the rear of the centre. These were converted to provide twelve single and four double rooms plus an office, a shower, a toilet and a laundry block.
   
1996 The hostel and resource centre merged to form Crawley Open House.
   
1999 A new management structure was introduced which comprised of a Director, Project Manager, seven other full time staff, three part-time staff, sessional workers and volunteers. It also saw the introduction of the resettlement process, key-workers and life-skill classes.
   
2001 We purchased and moved into new premises in Three Bridges. These premises were redesigned and refurbished to our specification enabling us to increase our bed spaces to twenty-four. We were also able to open a small medical centre with facilities for a Doctor, Nurse Practitioner, CPN, counsellors and health visitors. Each of these was now able to be in attendance for a number of hours each week.
   
2002 We started to open our main day centre on seven days each week. Our staff team also increased to include a senior manager and mental health support worker. We now had seventeen full-time staff, four part-time, sessional staff and volunteers.
   
2004 Christmas Eve marked the tenth anniversary of us providing hostel accommodation. In that time we had supported over 3,000 hostel residents in our hostel, 85,000 clients in our day-centre and resettled over 1,600 clients into appropriate accommodation.
   
2006 We opened Southwell Lodge – a ten bed hostel offering a high level of support to young people who would otherwise be homeless. The new staff at the Lodge take our team to thirty-two staff (full time and part time) plus our sessional staff and volunteers.
   
2007 We appointed a Deputy Director to strengthen our senior management team.
   
2009 We open move-on accommodation for five Riverside residents that are almost ready for independent living. We are also very grateful to be nominated as the Mayor’s charity for 2009.
   
2010 We appointed a Senior Manager to complete the management structure, We were made official charity for the Crawley Festival. We start work on building a first floor on part of Riverside House to improve the facilities that we can offer to clients. Our Director, Peter Mansfield-Clark, was awarded the MBE for his work with homeless and disadvantaged people.
   
2011 The first floor is completed and in use. We were named the 'Champion Carers' in the first ever Crawley Champions Awards. We appeared on BBC 1 "Cash in the Attic", on South East News and also on Channel 4 News.
   
2012 We start a major fundraising programme to upgrade our main kitchen in Riverside House, After eleven years of producing over 100 meals a day it is just worn out. We are trying to raise £40,000. We have received six months notice of our main funding steam for Southwell Lodge ceasing. We have to compete in a competitive tendering process to try and retain the funding for a further three years.