Whatever Hazel was expecting when she first came to the Shelter From The Storm, it wasn’t what she found. “It has opened my eyes to so many things,” she says. “I have met all kinds of people there, with all kinds of backgrounds. It has shown me a side of homelessness you don’t ordinarily see.” She loves talking to the guests, and was shocked to learn how just hard life had been for the some of them. “I have met some people who were sleeping rough when they were heavily pregnant, or had broken backs.”
It has helped her too. Hazel is 34, and says she is at “a bit of a crossroads”. She spent ten years working as a shoe designer for Vivienne Westwood, but recently quit. She had never volunteered before, but she saw an advert online and thought she would give it a go. Now she is also working a yoga teacher. “I feel like I can help people that way. Talking to the guests at Shelter has made me realise that yoga can help everybody.” The volunteering work, she says, came at just the right time. “Because Shelter is such a positive place. Going there, it made me feel like anything is possible in life.”