The York Arc Light Project is a direct access shelter aiming to address the issue of homelessness in York. Set up by Jeremy Jones in 1999, Arc Light has always operated at the cutting edge of service provision and its plans for a new building were recently identified as the flagship project in Central Government’s nationwide ‘Hostel Capital Improvement Program’ (H.C.I.P), which hopes to change the face of homelessness entirely. The H.C.I.P has granted Arc Light £1.65 million to build a new facility to house York’s homeless by 2007. A press release issued earlier this year by the leaders of the City Of York Council’s three political groups, also confirmed ‘their joint commitment to addressing issues of social exclusion in the city’. | "No longer will homeless shelters be known as ‘hostels’, but instead, ‘places of change’. " | |
The Office of the Deputy Prime Minister are investing £90 million of capital funding, through the H.C.I.P, to homeless projects across the UK in the hope of revolutionizing Britain’s exclusion situation. No longer will homeless shelters be known as ‘hostels’, but instead, ‘places of change’. The H.C.I.P believes that for resettlement prospects to be improved for rough sleepers, they will have to be accommodated in a totally different fashion, thus enabling a far higher success rate of reintegration into society. Jones, alongside an eclectic group of committed professionals has been working on plans for a new site since a grant was first offered in 2003. A site was located in Shipton Road in Clifton, York, plans were drawn up, but sadly the proposal had to be withdrawn in September 2005 following fierce opposition from local residents. Nevertheless, the basic concept behind the building plan can be transferred to fit the shape of a new site, a plan that coheres entirely with the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister’s emphasis on improvement via the restructuring of accommodation. Jones and his team maintain that wherever in York the new site is located, their underlying philosophy will prevail; in imbuing clients with a sense of joint ownership of the project, a sense of community is encouraged which is key to the attainment of successful rehabilitation. This idea has, in turn, been positively reflected in Arc Light’s remarkably low exclusion rates.
 | | The current Arc Light premises |
Jones wants the new site to hold a building that is iconic, a symbol that is able to stand upon its own architectural merits. He describes his vision of the new site as being built around the concept of ‘the street’; as streets lead you from a to b, so too will this building show its residents a way out via the various services and facilities it will provide. In the same way that a street is a community, surrounded on all sides by more streets and more lives - the greater community - so too will some of the building’s amenities be accessible to the community at large. And just as a street also houses shops, houses, schools, recreation facilities, cafes and doctor’s surgeries, so will Arc Light provide these facilities for their microcosmic ‘street’. All of these will be contributing factors towards Arc Light’s transformation into a ‘Centre of Resettlement Excellence’. Just as the surrounding community’s fears and preconceptions were disproved after Arc Light originally settled on Leeman Road, York, back in 1999, Jones hopes the same will happen wherever the new site will be too. Arc Light’s neighbours at the National Rail Museum are in fact so involved now in encouraging the good works of Arc Light that they provide many amenities to Arc Light free of charge. It seems perhaps that the issue of the demonisation of the socially excluded within society needs to be addressed, especially in light of the number of people hidden within the greater community who are on the very edge of this position themselves. As Jones succinctly puts it, ‘We all need to be socially inclusive’. Naomi Glass Pictures, courtesy of The Evening Press, York. | 
