Why One London Choir has Become a Refuge for the Homeless

By Laura Lynch

They gather every Monday evening in a converted church hall in a
working class London neighbourhood. Men and women ranging in age
from their twenties to their sixties with one thing in common: they
know what it is like to have no home.

Some, like Dean Johnson, ended up on the streets after losing
battles with drugs and booze. Then, a couple of years ago, Johnson
saw a poster on the wall in a shelter inviting people to join a
homeless choir in a shelter and he decided to try it out.

He has been coming every since.

“It’s my drug,” said Johnson. “Because I’m a reformed alcoholic
and it’s my sixth year of being sober. Now I’ve found a new drug
which is choir – I don’t pay for it, it’s free.”

Marie Benton founded the choir in 2008 as a way to mix her love
of music with her charity work.

“Really it is about inclusiveness and giving people something
that feels like home,” she said. “That’s our aim to create a safe
haven for people to sing and enjoy themselves and make friends and
feel that they belong to something and that their influence can be
a part of that and that we are really building a
community.”