Homelessness charities

A good move
Homelessness charities that usually compete for funds are working together to help get their clients into jobs
Josephine Moulds The Guardian, Wednesday 8 April 2009 Article historyDifficult times call for drastic action, and never more so than when it comes to finding jobs for people who are both unemployed and homeless. But since November, a number of homeless charities have put their rivalries to one side to form a consortium to get their clients into work.

David Lammy MP, who helped to kick start the scheme when he was minister for skills, is in no doubt about the enormity of the task. "Behind this issue is sometimes mental illness or drug addiction," he says. "It is people who are struggling with taking those first steps in any form of education, people who do not have English, people who find it difficult to add up."

Leslie Morphy, chief executive of Crisis, which is leading the 10-strong consortium that includes St Mungo's, Broadway and The Connection at St Martin's, says that although the programme was actually devised in a time of plenty, the economic downturn makes it more urgent. She warns: "If we don't do this now, we're going to end up, as we've ended up in other recessions, with not only one generation being unemployed, but another generation and another generation."

Skills and Jobs for Homeless People is funded by the government's Learning and Skills Council, which has pledged £775,000 a year until July 2010, subject to certain targets being met. It must engage 680 people on the programme doing courses, training and working towards qualifications; find jobs with training opportunities for 170 people; and 85 of those working must be in their job for at least 13 weeks.

The money is shared between the charities, which help with CVs, provide basic and vocational training, and broker specific job opportunities with employers. Opportunities range from the basic, such as delivering property magazines, to a 12-week bicycle maintenance course, which can pay £15 an hour.

Alex, a 27-year-old former heroin addict, is an early success story who has now held down for four months a job fitting air conditioning units.

Previously on the streets, he describes the obstacles to finding work. "You haven't got any money, or internet access or any credit on your phone, and you've got to walk everywhere," he says. "Some days, I went to a one-night shelter, but they wouldn't help me. They said I'd have to be homeless in that particular area for six months before I could even use the shower. So then it was a walk to the other side of London to go to another place. It was such a long way I had to camp out that night until I could get to another shelter."

Alex now lives in a hostel, which costs half his minimum-wage earnings, but his situation still feels very precarious. His hopes for the next couple of years are to get his own place and stay in employment. What might stop him achieving those goals? "Drugs," he says quietly.

Although employers don't receive a subsidy for taking on homeless jobseekers, they are supported by Crisis if anything goes wrong. After just two weeks, Alex went missing. Crisis tracked him down and discovered he had started taking methadone. "Once it was out in the open it was fine," says Richard Brooks, head of employability programmes at Crisis.

The concern is that other employers might not be as patient. So far, the scheme has found jobs for 20 people, and Morphy says: "We may have to be more persuasive, but there will be employers looking for people who, in a sense, we can give a guarantee about."

The different charities give the scheme coverage across London, as well as access to a wide variety of training resources.

Howard Sinclair, Broadway's chief executive, explains why this kind of partnership working doesn't happen more often. He says: "On one level, we are charities, but there is a competitive edge. We all tender for the same business. One of the downsides of the competitive environment that we're in is that it makes it harder to share information openly about how we run our business. There is a negative edge, which is about competing and doing each other down."

But he adds: "It is a positive way of challenging each other and working with each other. It isn't cosy, it isn't comfortable, but it stretches us all in a positive way, and reminds us what we're there to do."