Coronavirus update
The Coronavirus situation – events to be postponed
It is with regret that today, Museum of Homelessness is announcing the postponing of all upcoming events including our national vigil to remember those who have died homeless on 25 March and local vigil, outside Islington Town Hall.
We’re doing this in light of the recent developments with the coronavirus outbreak, and we’d like to offer our apologies. As you’ll no doubt be aware many public events are now being cancelled or postponed. The decision to do this comes in light of the need to:
Continue to respond and redirect our work to on the ground support for our community in this time of crisis.
Act in order to protect the safety of our attendees some of whom may well have an underlying health condition, or come into contact with people who do.
Respond to ongoing guidance around social distancing and the limitation of large gatherings.
What we’ve been up to
Just over a week ago MoH and Streets Kitchen began to implement emergency measures to respond to the rapidly escalating situation with coronavirus. This has developed into a 3-pronged strategy:
Mobilise: Outreach in a safe way to make up for a reduction in services
Communicate: Facilitate meetings with relevant parties to plan together.
Advocate: Make asks of authorities and share knowledge on safe responses
This work has involved outreach work on the ground, screenings and the publication of a plan in the absence of a meaningful response from government and the homelessness sector. The backdrop of this has been growing anxiety about the implications of coronavirus for our community. Our twitter feed provides the ongoing story and links to press coverage around this work. This includes the recent BBC coverage of our call for the provision of safe contained spaces for homeless people to self-isolate, and The Big Issue coverage of our campaign to open the Mildmay hospital that currently stands empty.
Currently all of our efforts are focused on preventing unnecessary deaths during this pandemic.
We will continue to monitor the situation and when circumstances allow, we will look to reschedule the vigil and other public events in the future.