The Winter Night Shelter is more than just a venue; it is a professional operation dedicated to safety, dignity, and support.

We are proud to introduce the highly skilled team running the shelter this season. This team is fully resourced to keep the doors open and the heating on. Their goal is simple: to ensure every guest receives expert support and a safe night's sleep.

Greg Marks

Night Shelter Coordinator

The Professional: Greg combines a sharp background in marketing with years of hands-on volunteering experience, including time spent in Switzerland. He brings an unflappable nature to the shelter, ensuring that the complex nightly operations run like a tight ship and that safety standards are always met.

The Personal: Having lived in Kingston for four years, Greg is deeply committed to making a difference in his own postcode. He has an uncanny knack for remembering faces, even years later, which helps guests feel seen and recognized, rather than just processed.

Vision for Success: A night where everything goes to plan, guests enjoy a warm meal and leave with more hope than when they arrived.

Community Hope: He hopes the community sees homeless neighbours not as statistics, but as fellow human beings who simply need help.

Basma Kamel

Winter Night Shelter Support Worker

The Professional: Basma is a seasoned professional in the sector, bringing four years of experience with homelessness charities and specialised work with asylum seekers. She knows the system inside out and is dedicated to building a career around supporting vulnerable groups.

The Personal: Although she commutes from East London, her dedication to this specific team makes the travel worth it. Friends describe her simply as patient and kind, vital traits for the shelter environment. She also holds a very controversial food opinion... she doesn’t like potatoes!

Vision for Success: A smooth operation defined by happy guests, a happy volunteer team, and a hot dinner served on time.

Her "Magic Wand" Wish: To find suitable, dignified accommodation for every guest immediately.

Catrina Betterton

Winter Night Shelter Support Worker

The Professional: Catrina joins us with extensive humanitarian experience, having worked across Africa, Asia, and the Middle East. This includes frontline work with asylum seekers in Greece. Currently serving as an Oxfam Humanitarian Risk Manager, she brings high-level crisis management skills to our local community.

The Personal: She lives in East London but travels to Kingston specifically to be part of this project. Known by friends as "Masterchef", her cooking skills are legendary and she brings warmth and flavour to everything she does.

Vision for Success: Every guest enjoying a warm, safe, and comfortable night's sleep, free from the stress of the street.

Her "Magic Wand" Wish: Improved government policies that actually support housing and address the root causes of the cost of living crisis.

Hannah Boyce

Winter Night Shelter Support Worker

The Professional: Hannah brings a fresh, academic perspective to the team, having recently moved to Kingston to study for an MSc in Forensic Psychology. With a professional background as a Probation Officer and deep experience in the criminal justice system, she offers expert insight into supporting those in complex situations.

The Personal: She spent her teenage years competing in martial arts, so she is disciplined, focused, and ready for anything.

Vision for Success: A warm, safe space where 30 guests feel genuinely supported, not just processed.

Her "Magic Wand" Wish: To house everyone instantly, but in the meantime, to instil hope in guests who feel they have no one left to lean on.

Peter Settimba

Winter Night Shelter Support Worker

The Professional: Peter is a true local, living right here in the Royal Borough. He brings robust professional experience as a Residential Support Worker and describes himself as reliable, supportive, and loyal. He operates on the belief that consistency is the key ingredient to helping people turn their lives around.

The Personal: Alongside his dedication to support work, he has a hidden passion for the creative arts.

Vision for Success: Guests feeling safe, catered for, and genuinely grateful for a dignified place to reside.

His "Magic Wand" Wish: To help guests process their past trauma so they can build the resilience needed for a stable future.