IMAGINE going home one day to find a friend has become an enemy and is holding a knife to your throat.

Or finding yourself with nowhere to go after losing your job, then your home, then your family.

These are some of the people Oxford Homeless Pathways (OxHop), formerly Oxford Night Shelter, helps get back on their feet, providing everything from a bed for the night to a new purpose in life.

O’Hanlon House, in Luther Street, is a modern facility with accommodation for 56 people complete with a laundry, a café, training and counselling rooms, and a ‘wet’ room and garden, the only place on the premises where people can drink alcohol.

Also part of OxHop is Julian Housing, which provides homes for 81 people in 14 houses, mainly in East Oxford, to act as a bridge for homeless people between shelters and rented accommodation.

Making up the third section of OxHop is the charitable wing of Luther Street Medical Practice.

OxHop chief executive Lesley Dewhurst said: “The reasons for becoming homeless are many and varied and it can happen to anybody.

“The biggest cause of homelessness is family breakdown and if someone has lost their job, their relationships become strained, they may turn to drinking, then they might get to the point where they’ve used up all their favours with their friends.”

About a third of people who use O’Hanlon House have alcohol addiction problems, another third have drug habits and a third have mental health issues – some have more than one.

More important than the physical shelter, the facility provides the opportunity to turn your life around, whether by taking advantage of training in everything from first aid and computer skills to moving away from destructive behaviour.

Ms Dewhurst said: “There is a continuum of people you tend to come across who keep coming back, but a few people’s lives can change considerably just from having a different outlook and kicking old habits.

“We try to link people up with opportunities, and to inspire them to do something, or get them to really think about what might be their pathway to employment or other meaningful occupation.”

Courses are run in literacy, numeracy and computing, along with more practical things like how to manage a budget or how to cook.

While people are allowed to bring alcohol in, it is handed in at the counter and doled out to be drunk in safe, plastic containers in the designated areas.

And when the temperature drops below a certain level, the Severe Weather Action Group kicks in, transforming the wet room into a place for up to 12 people to sleep.

Nightshift project worker Ness Tracey, who has been working at O’Hanlon House for about two years, said: “We take in people from all walks of life. Most people here have very strict morals but they have got unstuck for one reason or another.

“We should remember that none of us are invincible, it could happen to any of us.”

Rent at £3.50 per day – including meals – is charged and can be taken directly from housing benefit payments.

The average stay at O’Hanlon House is about four weeks – although some stay much longer and some just for a night at a time – and in Julian Housing accommodation, a year, with properties available for up to two years.

About 350 people go through O’Hanlon House each year, and 100 through Julian Housing.

The annual turnover of the charity is about £2.2m, with a little less than half coming from housing benefit, with the rest from Supporting People funding from Oxfordshire County and Oxford City Councils, and NHS Oxfordshire.