The Gatehouse, one of Univ’s partner charities, is an open door drop-in cafe for Oxford’s homeless and vulnerably housed, which operates Monday – Friday 5-7pm, Sundays 4-6.pm, at the St Giles Parish Rooms, 10 Woodstock Road, near the centre of Oxford.

The Aims of the charity are: “To relieve poverty and hardship among homeless and needy people in or near the City of Oxford and, in particular, by the provision of a drop-in centre.” On a more personal level this is achieved by welcoming the homeless and vulnerable and providing a place where companionship, dignity, and refreshment can be found in a warm, safe and therapeutic environment.

We are always on the lookout for volunteers to help us run our sessions providing essential services for our Guests. These services include the provision of basic needs (food and drink, clothes, sleeping bags, toiletries etc.), social contact, and one to one information and help with a long term aim of achieving full reintegration with society for our Guests, including permanent housing. We also run weekly art, literary, and computer activity groups.

Each session takes up less than 4 hours of a volunteers’ time, and most individuals cover a regular slot once a week, but some do more or less than that and you can simply limit your commitment to one session at a time on varying days of the week according to your availability.

From October we will be extending our opening hours to include a Friday afternoon session from noon to 3pm where guests will be able to book appointments with our one to one worker. Additional volunteers will be needed to help run these sessions so the need to have a large volunteer base is becoming even greater.

If you would like a challenging experience where you can make a difference you can join our volunteer team by contacting us at admin@oxfordgatehouse.org See oxfordgatehouse.org/volunteer for further details about volunteering.

More information about other Gatehouse activities can be found on the News page of our website at, including the summer 2019 edition of the Gatehouse Newsletter.

Find out more about The Gatehouse on the Univ in the Community page.

Published: 18 September 2019

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