Sanctuary Housing Project

Redland Friends have a longstanding concern for people seeking sanctuary. We are part of a Quaker network of nearly 100 Sanctuary Meetings and the proposed Sanctuary Housing Project builds upon our earlier refugee work. A planning group is drawing up a proposal to use some of the money released from the sale of the former wardens’ house to purchase a property which would be suitable for housing refugees in Bristol. Rather than attempting to reinvent the wheel, we propose forming a partnership with ACH (formerly Ashley Community Housing – www.ach.org.uk). Bristol Area Meeting would buy a suitable house and lease it to ACH. This well-established social enterprise company rents affordable accommodation to refugees and supports their full integration into British society.

If you would like to hear more about this proposal, please join a special Zoom meeting with the ACH manager, Fuad Mahamed, on Monday 7 December at 6.30pm.

All Redland Friends will receive a draft project proposal with their Redland weekly notices on 27 November. We hope you will bring along your questions on 7 December, so that we will have all the information we need when the matter comes to Redland LM in the New Year. If the Sanctuary Housing Project proposal is supported by Redland Meeting, it will then go forward to Bristol Area Meeting for discernment and decision.

You can find he Zoom link for the 7 December meeting in the Notices.

Sanctuary Housing Project planning group: Susana Askew, Caroline Beatty, Julia Bush, Marian Liebmann, Sue Tuckwell, Chris Watkins