Emmanuel House celebrates 50 years in Hockley with a permanent home on Goose Gate

Emmanuel House has been a pillar of the Hockley community for fifty years, and the Nottingham charity reaches its half century this November with something to celebrate: for the first time, the building it works from is its own.

The charity was founded in November 1976 by Fr Roger Killeen, a former headmaster of the Becket School in Nottingham, who wanted to give people the chance to serve their community. It was one of the first services of its kind in the country, offering friendship, advice, tea, coffee and snacks to people who were homeless, unemployed and lonely.

In March 2026 Nottingham City Council, which had leased the Goose Gate building to the charity for almost fifty years, offered to sell it outright. The full cost was £535,000. Thanks to donors and careful use of reserves, Emmanuel House had already raised around £460,000, so it asked the public to help close the final gap of £75,000 before the 31 March deadline.

Nottingham responded quickly. Marketing and Communications Manager Nicola Ramsdale told LeftLion the target was reached in less than a week, and Nottingham Building Society confirmed that it had been reached and exceeded. The society doubled its annual donation, taking its total support for the building fund to over £100,000. Chief executive Sue Hayes said the whole city should feel proud of what had been achieved.

That permanent home matters because of how much happens inside it. Every weekday the Support Centre runs drop-in sessions offering practical and emotional support, food, drinks, showers, haircuts, clothes, toiletries, a laundry service and sleeping bags. Both the drop-in and the Nottingham Winter Shelter are funded by donations and the generosity of local people.

There is more besides: two longer-term housing projects, a Wellbeing Support Team, and a social inclusion programme of gardening, cooking, singing, mindfulness, healthy eating classes and drama. The Umeed Project works with people from ethnic minority communities to make sure they have suitable housing and are not at risk of homelessness. This year, thanks to council funding, the emergency night shelter stayed open through the summer for the first time in its 22-year history.

Many of the team, from senior leaders to volunteers and trustees, have lived experience of homelessness, which shapes how services are designed. Hundreds of local businesses, community groups and faith groups give volunteer hours too.

As Nicola Ramsdale put it, the charity values the small things as highly as the big ones, from finding someone a new home to helping them feel welcomed and less alone. Fifty years on, those things now have a settled home on Goose Gate.