For people who are facing homelessness, COVID-19 has resulted in further isolation. In many countries across the world, the arts and homelessness community has rapidly responded – delivering projects with people who are or have been homeless to help with isolation, loneliness and wellbeing.

With One Voice (WOV), the international arts and homelessness movement, is mapping the creative projects and activities designed with and for people who are or have been homeless during the COVID-19 pandemic. The aim is to share and spread the good work that is happening across the globe.

One such example is a collaboration between Cardboard Citizens, The Reader and St Mungos in the UK, piloting ways to bring creative activities into hotels housing people who were sleeping rough in London. A simple “mobile library” was set up as an initial step in this work, inspired by the work of The Reader to enable everyone to experience literature, as a tool to survive and live well. Following on from its recent visual guidance for cultural organisations, WOV has produced a short guide about setting up mobile libraries. 

If you would like to share the arts and homelessness project you are working on, or are interested in learning about other initiatives, visit WOV’s mapping site.

At the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation (UK Branch), our Civic Role of Arts Organisations programme is seeking to create a movement of change makers, with impact in their local communities, across the UK and internationally. It is inspiring to see so many arts organisations rapidly reimagining their civic role in these extraordinary times and exploring how best to be relevant to their communities.