FORMER Beirut hostage Terry Waite today dug the first foundations for a project giving homeless people in Oxford somewhere to live and work.

In 1996, Jean Williams wrote to The Oxford Times, asking if anyone would be prepared to help her set up an Emmaus home in the city.

And today, after a decade of planning, Mr Waite - Emmaus's UK president - turned the first turf for a centre in Oxford Road, Cowley, which will eventually house 24 people and provide them with community-based work at a furniture recycling store in Marston.

Mr Waite, held for five years in Lebanon, said: "I was fortunate in the years of my captivity that I had a lot to fall back on. I had a store of memories and a stable family life to go back to.

"Many people who are homeless on the streets haven't had so many advantages.

"I have learned over the years how very easy it is for anyone to slip down and fall out of mainstream society."

He added: "What Emmaus provides is a structure that enables people to get back into life."

Emmaus provides both a safe and secure address and a job for homeless people.

The Oxford centre is set to take a year to build and is likely to welcome its first former homeless people in autumn next year.

It will be owned by Dominion Housing Group, which has paid £400,000 towards the construction of the centre and will rent it to the charity.

A further £1.4m has come from the Housing Corporation, and a further £600,000 from the Community and Local Government funds.

Mrs Williams, who has become a trustee for the charity, said: "For too long we have asked people to support a concept, now with Terry Waite arriving to dig the first foundations, we have the tangible icons of Emmaus Oxford's first community.

"We are all very happy because we have been waiting a long time. I am looking forward to when we can take in our first residents to a comfortable home and give them a chance to work and make a meaningful contribution to society."

William Alden, the chairman of the trustees, added: "This is the culmination of years of hard work."

Ultimately, the work carried out by the 'companions', as the residents of the centre will be known, will fund the project but a further £500,000 is needed to equip the home and furniture store.

  • Emmaus communities were first established in France in the 1950s to create places where residents live and work together, collecting and reselling donated furniture and household goods.

The first in the UK opened in Cambridge in 1992, and there are now 13 communities across the UK, along with a number of other projects in development.

It is a worldwide, non-religious social enterprise movement and there are 400 Emmaus communities in 39 countries.