Six projects from across London have been shortlisted for the London Homelessness Awards and are in the running to win the first prize of £30000.
This is the 21st anniversary of the awards, which are sponsored by the London Housing Foundation, London Housing Directors, Mayor of London, Crisis and Shelter. This year the awards are run in partnership with the Evening Standard Homeless Fund.
Organisers received over 30 applications for the awards and a judging panel had to choose just six. The projects will now be visited by a member of the panel and the final winner and runners up who will share a prize fund of £60000 will be announced at a special event on October 14th at the Union Chapel in Islington.
Simon Dow is the Chair of the judging panel for the London Homelessness Awards. He said: “In a strange and uniquely challenging year for the housing and homelessness sector we were very pleased with the number and quality of applications received. Yet again we saw examples of really high quality innovative work being carried out by a wide variety of organisations across London, helping people who are homeless or at risk of homelessness. It was as ever very tricky to agree a final six but these projects show real imagination, sustainability and commitment to help reduce homelessness in London.”
The six shortlisted projects (in alphabetical order) are:
Camden Health Improvement: is a specialist homeless GP service in Camden. Since 2015 they have provided a novel, innovative and evidence-based GP Outreach programme. The impact has been to raise the average age of death of their homeless patients from 47 up to 54 years old. This is whilst the national trend has been for the age of death for homeless people to fall from 47 down to 44 years of age.
MyBnk: The Money House is an accredited youth homelessness prevention scheme. It targets care leavers and vulnerable young adults about to move into social housing. Over a week, trained experts in four real flats across London teach participants everything they need to know to keep their tenancy. They focus on survival money management skills, understanding systems, planning for the future, and reducing financial exclusion. It has resulted in a 64% drop in evictions for those at risk of becoming homeless.
Southwark Law Centre: Homeless Patients Legal Advocacy Service: Southwark Law Centre works in partnership with Guy’s and St Thomas’ NHS Foundation Trust’s Homeless Health Team to provide advice and legal representation for homeless hospital patients. The law centre’s specialist solicitors help patients with particularly complex immigration, housing or welfare benefits cases. It also provides training and advice to the Trust’s homeless health team and other staff, so they are better able to support this particularly vulnerable patient group.
Standing Together and Solace Women’s Aid: The Westminster VAWG (violence against women and girls) Housing First project provides permanent, independent housing and intensive support for 20 women experiencing long term homelessness, any form of VAWG and multiple disadvantage. Solace work to build relationships with the women and provide intensive ‘woman led’ support to help them maintain a tenancy and improve physical and mental wellbeing. Standing Together manage partner-ships with a coalition of housing partners who provide units for the project.
SJOG Hospitaller Services: Olallo House is an innovative intermediate care service opened in 2008 in response to multiple tuberculosis (TB) treatment failures and preventable deaths among people experiencing homeless with complex needs and No Recourse to Public Funds. In addition to successfully supporting people to complete challenging TB treatment, Olallo is first and foremost a “home” providing holistic, trauma informed support enabling residents to realise positive changes and move on in their lives.
St Mungo’s: Westminster Street outreach Service work 365 days of the year early in the morning and late at night to provide support for individuals rough sleeping in Westminster. Westminster SOS provide support and assistance to anyone that finds themselves rough sleeping in Westminster. When people are housed they are then offered bespoke support so individuals maintain accommodation and do not return to the streets. This includes support with housing, health, immigration, access to benefits and reconnections where appropriate.
More details about the London Homelessness Awards can be found at www.lhawards.org.uk
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For more information, pictures or interviews please contact Mark Wall mark@markwall.co.uk 0790 999 3278. For more information about LHF and the programmes we run, please go to www.lhf.org.uk