FIRST LOOK: Homelessness support centre for women to open in Glasgow

A charity in Scotland is opening a brand new space to support women who are experiencing homelessness next week.

Simon Community Scotland gave Clyde 1 News the exclusive opportunity to tour the Connect Hub in Glasgow.

The doors of the multipurpose centre are set to open for women on Monday 13 May 2024.

The Connect Hub is a "psychologically informed" space, designed by a Steering Group of six women who have lived experience of homelessness.

Delivering a model of holistic support and care – as well as opportunities to access group work, education and employability pathways – the ambition is for women to come together in one community space.

The hub offers essentials, including showers and kitchens, as well as the ability to host a range of welfare agencies including health, law and housing.

The space also has the potential for hairdressers and nail technicians to offer services - something women facing homelessness may not have access to.

It is hoped the initiative will help more women to come forward and access help, as many feel unsafe and afraid to attend services with males present due to past trauma.

'It's important we come together as women to support each other'

Hannah Boyle, Connect Hub service lead, said: "Simon Community Scotland has had this ambition for quite a long time.

"We currently do a lot of work with women in our emergency and supported accommodation services and we wanted to be able to create a safe space for women to come, connect, learn, be together, get access to the support that they need and thrive.

"The majority of our services are not gender-informed.

"They're not designed through a gendered lens, they don't necessarily take into account women's needs.

"What we have done from the very beginning is ensure that women's needs are represented in the space and listen to women about what's actually going to work for them to ensure that they feel safe here, that it's a space that they want to be, they want to spend time.

"There is a real sense of distrust and fear for a lot of women in accessing services concerned for safety for many valid reasons.

"A lot of the women that we support have faced repeated experiences of violence, domestic abuse, sexual violence, and don't necessarily feel safe accessing services where they're not gendered and they're not only going to be around women.

"It's really important that we're able to come together as a collective, as a community of women, to support each other, to hold each other and create this safe space."

Warm and homely atmosphere

The space is bright, with empowered posters and decorations sprinkled throughout. Furniture is draped in an array of throws and cushions, with twinkling fairy lights and warm lamps scattered throughout.

Hannah added that they wanted to move away from traditional and clinical service design: "It was really important that this felt almost like a home.

"We wanted it to be warm and inclusive and welcoming from the outset, so we've tried to bring the outside in with lots of plants and lots of greenery.

"We've got lots of nice touches with nice feminist-empowering prints. We have our beautiful mural that was created alongside the women with a local artist who has done some incredible work to translate our vision onto the walls, which is beautiful.

"And this really, hopefully, represents the connection that we're trying to demonstrate, the connection with women, with their community, and also that connection with themselves, because this is such a space of wellbeing, and we want women to come in and recognise their worth, recognise their value, how important they are to us, but also to the world.

"A lot of the women that we support have little to no self-esteem, no self-confidence, but are so creative, so talented, so kind and generous and giving, and we want to be able to give back and allow them to recognise how amazing they are."

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