Shelter at XP Hospitality Devon 2026

About the session

The room at Beverley Holidays raised £315 for Shelter on 25 March. At an event that is not a fundraiser. That says something about the people in it.

Hannah Vischer, Shelter’s Regional Community Fundraiser for Bristol and the South West, opened with a question most people think they can answer: what does homelessness look like? The honest answer is that most people picture rough sleeping, and rough sleeping is the smallest part of it. Hannah walked the room through the real face of homelessness in 2026: families in temporary accommodation, people sofa surfing between friends, households living in unsafe or overcrowded conditions that the law classes as homeless even if no one on the outside would know it.

The session was interactive throughout. Hannah ran a series of scenarios, real situations, and asked the room to judge whether each person was experiencing homelessness. The answers were often not what people expected. A houseboat with a mooring: not homeless. A sofa surfer staying with a friend: homeless. Someone in temporary accommodation provided by the council: homeless, even if they have a roof. The Housing Act 1996 definition is broader and more human than most people realise.

The numbers that followed were harder to sit with. 480 households become homeless in England every day. Over 150,000 children are currently living in temporary accommodation. These are not abstract figures. They describe people in the communities that holiday parks, health clubs and hospitality businesses operate within, often including the people who work in them.

Hannah closed with a clear and practical message: there are things businesses can do, from lunch and learn sessions to bespoke fundraising, and Shelter will work with you to make it fit. The partnership with XP Hospitality continues across 2026 because we believe a resilient sector depends on stable communities, and because the people in our rooms clearly do too.