Camarilla Game ~ The Cottage. Camarilla Game ~ The Cottage.
The old Cottage hospital in Leek is now the town's homeless shelter. The premises are let out at a peppercorn rent by a charitable local (who bought the building outright after it fell into disuse and decay). Philanthropic groups in the area raise money on a regular basis for the charity's work and to pay the wages of its staff; local companies donate time and materials to keep the old building itself in good repair.
Those who stay at “The Cottage” are given a bed in either the male or female dormitories each night and, while these old wards upstairs are closed off during the day, there are workshops run and a soup-kitchen open in the downstairs of the hospital during working hours. Social spaces that are open to all encourage other people into the building and break down the divide between the homeless and their housed neighbours.
The Cottage encourages those who use it to rehabilitate themselves in society. In concert with the local paper, preferential advertising is given to those who support its work, lowering the stigma of homelessness in the town's community. Some of the rooms of the old hospital have been entirely renovated to provide conference space: this is available at exceedingly low rates to any local business that trains or employs people from The Cottage.
Places are limited so those who come from the area are given beds before itinerant tramps in order to encourage reinvolvement with Leek's other citizens. Those who use the shelter on a regular basis without taking advantage of the opportunities for becoming independant once more are asked to move on after two weeks (if a person's health is too weak for this, he or she is transferred to other care).
Following its success in Leek, the team who run The Cottage are now actively looking for a venue in Shelton in order to begin work on their new project for the City of Stoke-on-Trent: The House.
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