Glasgow Homeless Charity To Expand Services With 24-Hour Hub
Homeless Project Scotland (HPS) has been running an emergency night shelter in the basement of a Glassford Street building since November 2023 and there is currently a live planning application in play as they fight to keep it in place, reports glasgowlive.
The charity is now using the large ground floor to host a separate daily free meals service and extend its range of support offerings. The additional space became available to the charity thanks to Quest For Success, a charity offering hope and careers to young people in need, which now works alongside HPS founder Colin and his team. Colin intends to create an all-day service where anyone who needs it can drop in for food, a hot drink, assistance with various services and somewhere warm and safe where they can finally relax – but he needs volunteers to help.
Homeless Project Scotland founder Colin McInnes said: “This is a really big step and something I think will make a huge difference to people in need in our city – we continue to await the council response to our application for change of use but in the meantime we have to keep working to stop people dying on our streets. There is a true desperate crisis in the city and the country right now and we have to respond, so we continue to fight on the front lines to save lives. We have our main night shelter space in the basement of course but having a ground level site for a separate welfare centre now allows us to showcase what we do every day, and make it all more welcoming and open.”
He added: “Some people are maybe intimidated at the idea of approaching an emergency night shelter or even coming down to the soup kitchen – but now you can look in the window and see exactly what to expect, which is people trying to help. It’s a really positive move for the city and will help us to help even more vulnerable people, so thank you to Quest For Success for making this happen – this is definitely a success achieved for the charity.”
The expansion to another full floor offering vital support services has come about through the ongoing collaboration with Quest For Success, its founder Barry Cushley and team Shannon Cowan and Kelly Whipday. Founder Barry said: “We’re very happy to have been able to extend our ongoing long-term partnership with Colin and his incredible team of volunteers at Homeless Project Scotland. Shannon and Kelly from our charity Quest For Success have been blown away by seeing up close the work Colin does – but also horrified by the depth of need here in Glasgow in 2025.”
He added: “It’s their enthusiasm to help that has driven this change and they are the ones who carry out the work so thanks go to them – I had an idea to do something good but it’s my team who have actually carried out the work to make all of this happen with Colin. We are working hard to grow as people and as an organisation to help others – Shannon and Kelly and of course Colin and team HPS are the people who actually make our big picture ideas and changes happen though.”
The Quest For Success team have had their eyes well and truly opened by engaging with Colin and what HPS are trying to do – and Shannon admits it’s been difficult but has sparked new ideas on how the charities can support each other. Shannon said: “It’s hard to believe how bad things really are – both of us were really taken aback. Barry had seen it up close and had to get involved and now we’ve seen what is happening first hand we felt the same way. We really wanted to do more and we’re very happy we are able to do so as a very young organisation – Quest For Success is here to make a difference to the lives of young people in need and there’s no better way to have an impact than working closely with someone like Colin.”
She added: “Colin wants to offer as many services and supports as possible so Quest For Success will step up and secure and provide some of those things – we will create and run talks, classes and sessions to help develop life skills and make sure people can adjust to change and take advantage of opportunities. We should be thanking him for opening our eyes to this crisis and allowing us to help.”
Colin plans to gradually add and roll out new services on the ground floor of the welfare centre, offering everything from safe spaces to medical and legal services. Colin said: “The first stage is we have moved the soup kitchen operation to the ground floor area and that is running now every evening from 7.30pm until 9.30 pm, seven days a week. The next stage is to begin breakfast and lunch services that will also be open to anyone who needs a hot meal. We want to be open all day every day for anyone who needs us to have a safe warm place to sit as long as they want – if the shelter is too much, sit here. Like a café but free of charge. We want to offer services like legal and medical support, become truly a one stop shop for the homeless and vulnerable.”
He added: “We’re doing more now than ever before so thank you to all at Quest For Success for making this possible. I actually found it hard to believe initially that a man would hand over a big basement in a prime city centre site out of the goodness of his heart – but Barry has showed time and time again all he wants is to help. He’s now set up an organisation purely to assist those in need, and through his team at Quest For Success has given us another huge space. The thanks are not from us, they’re from the people of our city and of Scotland – now we need help from the public as we need volunteers to use the space properly.”
