What might stop you from volunteering to work with homeless people?

Hello grannyactivistI don't think it is so much about someone choosing not to volunteer with a community homeless charity but about choosing a charity of their choice. There are so many registered charities and people often choose to volunteer with charities that mean something to them personally, whether that be Cancer Research, British Heart Foundation, Prostate cancer or smaller local charities. I do appreciate how hard it is for charities to find and keep volunteers but it is down to personal choice at the end of the day.

I’m not in a position to volunteer unless it’s wfh, but what would worry me is someone violent attaching themselves to me, perhaps finding out where I live. Also emotionally I’m not sure I could cope with the sadness. I feel pathetic admitting this.

Sorry Galaxy cross post there. I think I've echoed what you've just said.

OP just a thought, but how easy is it to make contact with your charity? I've volunteered for things and the contacting/information seeking/joining bit has been tortuous and almost put me off.

Do you wait for people to contact you with a general interest so that you can discuss roles? That's all a bit vague I think.
Would you get more interest if you had the roles/volunteering details up front and visible so that people could see exactly what is available and what interests them?

I think that might be part of the problem then granny, if I wasnt clear how I could help you and whether the skills I have were useful then I probably wouldnt contact either. I am a school governor because I knew that I had relevant skills to the role.

The ‘homeless’ aspect wouldn’t put me off grannyactivist

Casdon you're right about there being a lot of charities, but that's not the issue. I'd like to know why someone would choose not to volunteer for a community homelessness project and would give preference to any of the other charities.

Galaxy - your question is the obvious one, but we don't get people asking it because they're not even considering it enough to make contact with us. I will answer it further down the thread, but I'd like to get unfettered responses first.

My husband was homeless himself as a young man and when he retired the first thing he did was sign up to help out at Shelter.

He was the only actual volunteer as his fellow workers were all there as part of their community service. They didn't want to be there and spent the time larking and loafing.

It made for a soul destroying experience for him and sadly he left.

It may just be that there are so many volunteering opportunities out there at the moment, so many charities are desperate?

Depends on the roles grannya. I’d not see homelessness as a barrier to volunteering. Locally the roles offered to volunteers working with homeless people haven’t fitted with my interests or availability. I made contact some while ago enquiring about a need for advocacy or a listening role, having had professional training in both. Unfortunately the project didn’t need those skills at the time. Thinking more broadly could it be that potential volunteers have a fear of being out of their depth or simply misunderstand how easy it is to become homeless? I’m not sure what I am saying other than for myself a homelessness project wouldn’t be a barrier to volunteering but the type of role offered could be.

A good, generous friend of mine was taken for a real ride by a homeless man. I am afraid that it has coloured my view. I know this is unfair, I really do, but can't get past it. I think I would be too suspicious of everybody to be able to help them properly.

My impairments limit what I’m able to help with. I volunteer with a disability charity, it’s web-based so can do from home.

It's quite hard to answer unless we know what the roles involve?

The reputation for drink, drugs and aggression would be a factor in the nearest unit to me, I think. Whether the reputation is deserved is a different question, of course.