The Manna Society is a registered charity founded in 1982 to help homeless and vulnerably housed people. We run a day centre (the Manna Centre) which is open seven days a week, 51 weeks of the year, offering a wide range of practical help and advice to some of the most disadvantaged people in our society. We are based at London Bridge, and we provide both a compassionate and practical response to the problems faced by London’s poor and homeless. 

Like many organisations during the two years of Covid we had to adapt our services. Thankfully, now that the threat from Covid is receding we have returned to our open-door policy. A breakfast, lunch and washing facilities are available 7 days a week, Housing & Welfare Advice five days a week, a clothing store two days a week, medical care twice a week and access to computers from Monday to Friday. 

A new service which began initially as a response to Covid but which we have decided to continue is our telephone advice helpline. Anyone with a housing or welfare problem can ring our advisor Monday to Friday 10am to 1pm. 

In addition to our telephone helpline, we also assist clients face to face with housing & welfare issues. A report for each of these services, giving a brief synopsis of how many clients we seen, what was achieved and the issues that arose can be found on our website - www.mannasociety.org.uk. In September 159 clients were assisted via both of the above advice services. 

Approximately one third of our service users are rough sleepers, one third living in temporary accommodation and one third in rented accommodation. 50% are in receipt of Social Security benefits whilst 47% have no income whatsoever – October 22 statistics.