Winter Shelter Toowoomba 2025

Winter Shelter Toowoomba 2025

by Pauline Hanley

Winter in Toowoomba can be very cold. Not only do the temperatures drop but we get a bitter cold wind blowing across the top of the mountain in which the city sits.

In 2020 a group of churches were asked be part of a project that would welcome some of our homeless into our church spaces to sleep during the cold winter months.

Winter Shelter Toowoomba is an affiliate of Stable One, a program that has been successfully supporting people experiencing homelessness in Victoria for over six years.

The project brings together seven (now ten) local faith communities to open their facilities to those without a place to stay, providing beds, free meals, a caring community and support services.

Operating from June to August, Winter Shelter Toowoomba will support up to eleven people a night for 91 nights. Winter Shelter provides accommodation, food, hope, dignity and community for those in need. 

The Toowoomba West Anglican Parish has been part of this program from the beginning. Initially under the auspice of Lifeline Daring Downs. In 2024 the churches banded together to form their own charity Toowoomba Churches Care Ltd, and now Winter Shelter Toowoomba sits under this organisation. The Reverend Pauline Harley Rector of the Toowoomba West Anglican Parish sits on the board.

After fund raising last year ($117,000) the program was able to employ a welfare coordinator to help the guests in a number of areas, from getting identification, helping get them into AA and DA programs to helping with medical needs and housing applications.

Although the program’s goal is providing a night’s accommodation for one person there has been some fantastic outcomes for guests in regard to accommodation. Many reconciling with children, some getting clean from Alcohol and drugs. And a few have been baptised and given their lives to Christ. Many guests from previous years are still in their accommodation and now volunteer for the program.

Prayer has been a really important part of what we do. All our meetings begin with a devotional and prayer, and so does our training video. This year our formation student Eleanor Whereat with our parish has been asked to coordinate the prayer request of all the churches and guests. This is part of Eleanor’s Learning Task Goal’s of church and community engagement. Eleanor will also be volunteering on Saturday nights at our church and in the day-space provided for our guests. Listening to our guests in a non-judgmental way goes a long way in supporting our guests, many who face an unkind world on the streets. For more information on this project please contact The Reverend Pauline Harley M: 0407 676 917

 


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