Over 55 years ago, an approach to the local council for support to start a new type of service in Coventry led to a remarkable offer that has since changed many people’s lives.
Instead of offering financial help, Coventry City Council fully funded and purpose-built Murray Lodge for Langley to operate out of. Opening its doors in 1969, its unique vision was to support teenagers and adolescents, some with only one offence behind them and often from broken homes, to rebuild their lives. Over 55 years later Murray Lodge is still going strong…
After joining them for their 9:30 am Breakfast Club, where a volunteer comes in to cook for clients every Tuesday (and Christmas Day last year), we caught up with Kelly (pictured right), the service manager, who was happy to tell us more about the service and clients.
Tell us about Murray Lodge and what you do here?
We are a 14-bed hostel with additional properties across Coventry providing clients with increasing levels of independence as they move on into the community.
Day-to-day at Murray Lodge we seek to inspire hope. Our clients often come from traumatic or chaotic lives and the lodge gives them a space to breathe. We work with each client helping them work towards goals, whether that’s long-term accommodation, volunteering, employment or simple life skills like cooking or even learning to read and write.
What is unique to Langley, compared to other places you’ve worked?
I’ve worked in this industry and the homeless sector for a long time and for me, Langley being a Christian organisation makes all the difference. It allows us to not just have a positive impact on lives practically but if a client wants they can bring faith into it as well.
Here we actually get the opportunity and have time to make a real difference in our guys’ lives, even if that’s simply looking a client in the eye when they are at their lowest and saying “It’s ok, we’ve got you”.
What are the main challenges that you face?
Obviously it can be hard, there are weeks when there are more tears than smiles, days when people are recalled to prison or we have to evict someone.
One challenge is resources to give our clients purposeful activity to keep them busy and motivate them to make change. For example we want to develop the woodworking shed (see page 2 of Breakout for an image), we have a client who has brought his own tools in but we need a workbench and more tools, I’ve got a punch bag with nothing to hang it up on, we have huge gardens that we could create an allotment in – but all this needs more time, people, volunteers, funding… and prayers!
What are the most rewarding parts of the work?
There are many stories that we could share. One of the special things I find here is that clients often want to help each other out – we have guys who have put on cookery classes for others. We had a guy who was doing all the gardens, and going out litter picking locally with others. Another client struggled a lot with alcohol and two clients took him under their wing, and now he’s clean and he’s moved out to more independent accommodation.
Not everything is a big win, but it’s actually to see those little wins too. Progress in well-being, getting up in the morning, making your bed, getting washed… doing those little things, they are the big wins for some of our guys.
Breakout Spring 2025
Read this article and more in the latest edition of Breakout.
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