History
In November 1940 thousands of people had lost their homes in the blitz. To help deal with the shortage of accommodation the Government set up on the 5th November 1940 a company, London Hostels Association Ltd., (LHA) with a Council of Management charged with the task of providing hostels for the homeless.
The Council set to work looking for buildings, which could each hold about 50 people. But with bombs falling every night, buildings had to have basements or other spaces that could be converted to provide bomb shelters. This added to the difficulties of opening hostels. Nevertheless some ten weeks after the company was formed Mrs Churchill opened the first hostel in January 1941. The charges were £1 a week plus a shilling for any meals on Saturday and Sunday! By the end of 1942 there were 33 hostels housing some 700 people, many of whom had been brought to London for war work of one kind or another.
With the end of the war the number of hostels was gradually reduced. By the 1950’s the bulk of the residents were young people recruited in the provinces for work in Government departments. This continued to be the situation until the seventies, by which time there were 17 hostels.
LHA is now a charity, but still managed by a voluntary Council of Management. We now have eleven large hostels providing affordable accommodation for some 1450 young people. All have been modernised and refurbished over the past decade. In half of them, residents prepare their own food in shared kitchens. The remainder offers a catered service with large self-service cafeterias. LHA is pleased to announce the opening of the eleventh hostel in the London Borough of Southwark towards at end of 2003. The new purpose built self- catered hostel provides around 180 beds in mainly single, en-suite rooms.
Today, our residents are young, single people studying or working in London, and live with the Association either to undertake educational courses, or if working, to give themselves time to familiarise with London, to make friends and to decide whether or not to make more private and long term arrangements for housing. Providing certain conditions are fulfilled, residents may stay as long as they wish until the age of retirement is reached.
