Birmingham hotel makes Christmas mattress appeal

Nitenite hotel in Birmingham has launched a campaign to buy new bed mattresses for Birmingham Christmas Shelter, with the charity anticipating high demand.

With a rise of 11% in families applying for homelessness assistance, Birmingham Christmas Shelter is expecting an increase in people seeking beds in the coming days.

Nitenite HR manager Liz Holmes is a volunteer at the shelter and has now set up a campaign to help raise funds for more mattresses. The hotel has donated cash for the first instalment of mattresses, and the hotel team is raising the rest of the money.

Birmingham Christmas Shelter trustee Steve Johal said: "We have experienced a sharp increase of service users over the last few years and have come to the point where we require more mattresses for this Christmas as we expect more guests to attend our shelter this year. We would like to thank nitenite for providing us with the extra mattresses to help provide a better Christmas for our guests."

General manager Lee Alibone added: "We recently set up the ‘nitenite in the community' project to allow us to get more involved with local charity work, so when we heard about the challenges the shelter was facing we were keen to show our support.

"The Christmas Shelter has been helping people for over 30 years and there are a number of people who will be depending on the charity this year, making it vital the shelter has these extra resources."

Birmingham Christmas Shelter runs from December 23 to 28 offering food and accommodation to over 100 people per day.

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