SVP house reopens, expanding family accommodation

North Norfolk SVP Conference increases family based emergency accommodation with reopening of Blessed Rosalie Rendu House.

The SVP Temporary Emergency Accommodation (TEA) Project, first established over 5 years ago in Cromer and Sheringham has now been further enlarged to cater for more homeless families since the need for emergency family accommodation has doubled during that period. The whole project of 3 properties now protects up to 7 families and more than 20 children at any one time.

After some four and a half months of building work started in February 2024, the £110,000 building conversion work was successfully completed. On July 11, North Norfolk Conference President Michael McMahon, assisted by SVP Local Housing and Support Manager Debbie-Anne Farrow and with conference members welcomed representatives from North Norfolk District Council Housing Department and other guests (including Fran Ludden from the newly formed Sacred Heart SVP Conference based at Aylsham) to the blessing ceremony at Bl.Rosalie Rendu House in Cromer. They went on to inspect the high quality of the 3 apartments now fully furnished and available for use by new families urgently awaiting emergency accommodation.

Project Response and Impact

In the last financial year the TEA Project has safeguarded 12 families (including 33 Children). Some 25 families and 44 single people have moved on positively from the SVP houses into permanent homes since 2019.

The North Norfolk District Council document “Homelessness & Rough Sleeping Strategy 2019 to 2024”, adopted in December 2019, clearly established the original need and provision required to help more than 34 families in the area per year who experience or were in danger of direct homelessness, needing immediate emergency temporary accommodation.

Publication of statistics as at December 2023 shows the homeless position has worsened by almost 100% in North Norfolk with 66 households having dependent children formally assessed as being homeless or or threatened with homelessness.

Project Support and Future Growth

The Trustees of the St Vincent de Paul Society have shown significant faith and given major support to this Project since 2018. This year, In addition to the significant conversion and renovation building work, they have now appointed full time support staff which has enabled much more help to be given to both the standard of accommodation and assistance to the residents.

James Harding, the recently appointed SVP Head of Housing, is currently working on the feasibility of  an additional North Norfolk expansion project to acquire 2 further houses. It is hoped these would be support houses on short term tenancies to which families in emergency accommodation can progress to and ensure they have the right support to permanently resettle. James envisages that the model can then be replicated in a major city environment where the need to respond to the effects of homelessness is even greater.

Who is Blessed Rosalie Rendu?

When she was nearly 17 years old in 1803, Jeanne Marie Rendu became a sister of the Daughters of Charity and received the name Rosalie. She spent over 50 years serving God and the poor in Paris. She opened a free clinic, a pharmacy, a school, an orphanage, a childcare centre, a home for the elderly and a youth club for young workers. She became known as the “good mother of all”, and in 1833 helped Frederic Ozanam and his friends to do good works, which is how the St Vincent de Paul Society started.

Pictured above, with a NN conference member looking on, Father Trindade Monteiro, Parish Priest of Our Lady & St Joseph, Sheringham, blesses the Rosalie Rendu Icon during the opening and re-dedication service at the now refurbished 3 apartment property. New residents have started to take up residence from July 24.

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