999 Club video transcript

[Voiceover]
The 999 Club is a charity in south-east London, based in Lewisham, that helps homeless people, rough sleepers and those with a range of really challenging difficulties in their lives.

We’ve got advice and advocacy workers, so if anyone needs form filling, housing, things like that. We’ve got nurses, NHS nurses that come in twice a week. They do flu jabs, they take bloods. We have a mental health team which comes in at least once a fortnight and sees some of its patients, and finds new ones. So we have a range of services that come in and use our drop-ins as a place of work, as they know they will find here the people they should be helping.

[Peter Wood, Chief Executive, 999 Club]
The night shelter runs from early December to late March. This gets people off the streets and into a place of warmth and safety. They have free weeks in the night shelter. They have a hot meal. They have the hall, where they sleep. Their property is allowed to be downstairs and they can have showers etc.

I think one of the main misconceptions about rough sleepers is a failure to see them as human beings, with interesting stories of their own.

[Luke, 999 Club service user]
When it’s really cold, I’m down in the Greenwich foot tunnel. I just want to get back to where I was before. You know, I’m someone who has worked for 10 years. They’ve kind of helped me stand on my own two feet. If I didn’t have this place, it would be a damn site harder.

[Voiceover]
We would like to see the day when our services are no longer needed. But as long as there are homeless people, we will be here to help them.