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."

Hot Chip

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Michael Meacher: Is Brown serious about social housing? | Comment is free | guardian.co.uk

outstanding historic debt on council housing, now amounting to some £12bn, has already been paid off more than three times over. Government receipts from right-to-buy sales have yielded altogether around £45bn, of which only a quarter has been recycled into improving public housing. In addition, stock transfer has produced a further £6bn, making a net total of £40bn extracted from the council housing estate. So why should council tenants still have to clear any remaining historic debt? In effect some of the very poorest people in the country are having to subsidise the exchequer, whose public expenditure has been shown in regular surveys to disproportionately benefit the middle classes.

Michael Meacher: Is Brown serious about social housing? | Comment is free | guardian.co.uk

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40 per cent fewer homeless young people in bed and breakfast

40 per cent fewer homeless young people in bed and breakfast
National figures released today show that the number of vulnerable young 16 and 17 year olds being housed in bed and breakfast accommodation has fallen by 40 per cent over the last year.The number of 16 and 17 year olds living alone in bed and breakfast accommodation fell from 550 to 330 during 2008 as a result of a range of measures the Government has introduced, including a new national supported lodgings scheme and improved access to family mediation for young people at risk of homelessness to help them stay at home with their families where possible.Where staying in the family home is no longer an option, Government funding has created of a new national supported lodgings development scheme to provide accommodation, advice and mediation services for young people to get their lives back on track.Homelessness Minister Iain Wright said:"Young people at risk of becoming homeless are some of the most vulnerable in society and simply parking these young people in bed and breakfast accommodation without ensuring they have the skills or confidence for independent living just isn't good enough."That is why we have committed to ending the long term use of bed and breakfast for 16 and 17 year olds by 2010, replacing it with supported lodgings and high quality emergency accommodation, with skilled staff and family mediation."But most importantly, we're providing young people and their families with support to prevent young people becoming homeless in the first place - giving them the chance to lead independent and successful lives."Statistics also released today show the number of households in temporary accommodation has fallen for the 13th consecutive quarter, down to 67,480 - the lowest level since 2000. Homeless acceptances have also dropped, by 21per cent compared to the same period last year, and by 62per cent compared to 2003, to a low of 12,070.Notes to editors1. The statistics on homelessness, released today can be found at:http://www.communities.gov.uk/publications/corporate/statistics/homelessnessq420082. On 14 November 2006 the Government announced a package of measures to tackle youth homelessness, included in this was a commitment to end, by 2010, the use of bed and breakfast accommodation by local housing authorities in discharging their homelessness duty to secure suitable accommodation for 16 and 17 year olds3. Details on current measures to tackle youth homelessness can be found at: http://www.communities.gov.uk/housing/homelessness/youth/Media Enquiries: 020 7944 3049News Releases: http://www.communities.gov.uk/newsroomClient ref 052COI ref 171672P

NDS - News Distribution Service

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Controversy over one-shot drug to save addicts who overdose after leaving prison | Society | The Guardian

A quick fix
'At-risk' prisoners are being issued with a take-home pack of a drug to help them recover if they overdose. Will this trial scheme save lives or could it encourage risky behaviour among addicts?

Mark Gould reports * Mark Gould * The Guardian, Wednesday 18 March 2009 * Article historyKylie Reed, a doctor, trains drug users at St Mungo's homeless hostel to use naloxoneDoctor Kylie Reed works with drug users at St Mungo's homeless hostel, including training them in using the injector packs. Photograph: Teri PengilleyThe bleak statistics show that around 3,000 deaths every year in the UK are due to drug overdose, with 1,058 death certificates in 2007 giving the cause of death as injecting heroin or morphine. And the most at-risk group are newly released prisoners with a history of injecting. In the first four weeks of freedom, they are seven times more likely to die of an overdose than other heroin users.In an attempt to address the problem, 5,600 prisoners with a history of injecting will take part next month in a £1m trial in which, come their release date, half of them will be issued with "take-home" packs containing one-shot injectors of naloxone. Giving addicts free access to naloxone - a cheap antidote to heroin that is almost free of side-effects and is regularly administered by paramedics and in accident and emergency units - could lead to a significant reduction in overdose deaths and become part of national drug treatment policy.After promising trials, the homelessness charity St Mungo's also wants to offer naloxone to injecting users in its hostels and on the streets.However, there are concerns that giving addicts what they might regard as an insurance policy against an overdose could simply reinforce addictive behaviour, and could therefore increase the death toll.The "take-home" trial hopes to answer these questions and cut overdose deaths by 28% in the first 12 weeks after release. The ultimate aim would be a reduction of between 150 and 200 deaths a year.Chemical receptorsNaloxone, injected into arm or leg muscle, blocks the chemical receptors in the brain of the person who has overdosed, quickly restoring consciousness. If the dose wasn't big enough the user would simply fall back into unconsciousness. Depending on the dose, the effect lasts for around 20 minutes, so the trial stresses that an ambulance must be called immediately, as dragging someone back into consciousness and instant, chemically induced cold turkey can make them distressed, agitated and, potentially, violent.While it must be prescribed by a doctor for a named patient, naloxone is one of the few drugs classed as "exempt", meaning that, in an emergency, anyone - a carer, or member of the family or fellow user - could give a life-saving injection, or the named patient could give the injection to someone else who has overdosed.The trial, funded by the Medical Research Council, is being run from 25 prisons in England and Scotland. On release, prisoners will receive a pouch containing a pre-loaded syringe of naloxone hydrochloride, information illustrating injection sites, and a pre-paid reply card about their drug use. Families and carers will also receive training in overdose awareness and how to administer the drug.In the control group, prisoners and families will receive all the same information about harm and overdose awareness, but no naloxone. This group will model in effect what is current best practice in some, but not all, prisons.Naloxone is non-addictive and usually does no harm even when given in error, so it seems a "no-brainer", according to Max Parmar, who is running the MRC trial. He says: "It looks very promising, but it's not as simple as that, especially when you are talking about changing behaviours of injecting drug users."He adds: "It's entirely possible that we will save lives, but it may be that we do nothing except waste NHS and prison service time and money. Signing up to the scheme means lots of people need to be involved."We could do more harm than good. What if a peer or carer isn't there to give the injection, or doesn't feel comfortable doing it? What if [users], having a failsafe to protect from overdose, get into more risky behaviour?"If the trial is successful, and gets approval from the Department of Health (DH), the prison service and the Ministry of Justice, it could become part of UK release procedure for some 56,000 at-risk inmates."Take-home" kits have been used with apparent success by several community drug teams in England and Scotland. The DH welcomed the MRC trial, but added that its own, independent reviews of such community schemes, concludes that effectiveness is "largely anecdotal".Last year, St Mungo's issued naloxone to residents of one of its hostels in London. The drug was used six times and there were no overdose deaths. However, there are no reliable figures to compare the situation before the trial.Gayle Jones, one of St Mungo's managers, says: "Naloxone gives addicts more control over their habit, and it can become part of treatment and aid recovery."She wants to extend the scheme to all hostels, and to its outreach and needle exchange schemes to target the many thousands who are not aware there is an antidote to an overdose.But Parmar cautions: "To see the benefits in the community, you would need to study thousands of people to see if it saved one life, as there isn't that same level of risk of [fatal] overdose as in the weeks just after release from prison."Ettore is 51 and has injected heroin for more than 20 years. He looks emaciated and says he has kidney disease, diabetes and circulation problems. He knows all about overdose and the effects of naloxone, as someone who has used it both on himself and to save a friend. He has lived in St Mungo's hostel in south London for two years and has been revived from overdose twice - once a couple of months ago.The right doseHe says: "OD is like having a heart attack. You feel hot, you feel cold, your arms and face tingle." After the naloxone, he says, "you wake up and feel like a normal person, only like you are speeding. It [the amount of naloxone needed to revive a person] depends on how much heroin you had and what it was cut with, and also on the dose of naloxone. Paramedics give you a big dose, but the dose here is smaller, so you might need two or three."When he revived his friend, it took under a minute. "We had a hit together," he recalls. "My friend was lying on the bed and I saw his face had turned purple. I got him up and put his arm over my shoulder and started walking him around to try to wake him up. It didn't work, so I injected him in the arm. He woke up in 40 seconds. I never fix on the street, always with a friend. That way they can help you."With a small bag of heroin costing £10 and offers of three for £25, Ettore explains that dealers maximise profits by adding other substances that can dilute or even negate the effects of naloxone. The latest trend is for adding tranquillisers or buprenorphine, a morphine substitute used in treatment. Naloxone is not an antidote to these drugs, so it adds to the complexity of treating an unconscious patient.Ettore believes that naloxone should be freely available, especially to newly released prisoners. "You come out of jail and your body is not used to heroin, so a little fix will knock you over," he says.But he also provides ammunition for those who say that making it freely available will encourage drug use. "Why not take it before you have a fix?" he asks. "But you would need a lot, because some people in here have seven fixes a day."Emily Finch, an addiction psychiatrist from South London and Maudsley NHS foundation trust, who prescribes to St Mungo's residents, is confident that naloxone is safe and hopes the MRC trial saves lives.She would like to see all 4,000 or so injecting users in treatment on her patch carrying naloxone, and for it to be prescribed to families so that they are part of the treatment process. She says: "I'd like to see it become as normal as one of those kits that kids who are allergic to peanuts carry around."

Controversy over one-shot drug to save addicts who overdose after leaving prison | Society | The Guardian

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Interview: Stewart Sutherland, chairman of a royal commission on long-term care | Society | The Guardian

"I don't think David has ever managed anything other than his race card at Catford dog track."

Interview: Stewart Sutherland, chairman of a royal commission on long-term care | Society | The Guardian

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Polly Toynbee: Owners must be weaned off the house-price drug | Comment is free | The Guardian

The new Homes and Communities Agency is putting together a commercial consortium to build £1bn worth of private rented property.

Polly Toynbee: Owners must be weaned off the house-price drug | Comment is free | The Guardian

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2009 London 03-02-2009 09-38-01.JPG

2009 London 03-02-2009 09-38-01.JPG
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People to have a 'staycation' thanks to 'brickor mortis' - Telegraph

Collins is considering the following words::: staycation n informal: holiday spent at home, especially due to straitened financial circumstances.:: brickor mortis n informal: a period of difficult times in the housing industry.:: recessionista n informal: a person whose clothes, whether cheap, second-hand or subtly subdued, are considered appropriate to an economic downturn.:: bad bank n informal: a state-owned financial institution created to alleviate a financial crisis.:: credit-crunched adj informal: adversely affected by a credit crunch.

People to have a 'staycation' thanks to 'brickor mortis' - Telegraph

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HCA will fund land purchase to kickstart housebuilding - Building

HCA will fund land purchase to kickstart housebuilding16 January 2009By Chloë Stothart, Joey GardinerHomes agency offers 50% of land buying costs to housing associations that promise to build moreThe new Homes and Communities Agency has told some cash-strapped housing associations it will fund up to 50% of their land acquisitions if they can guarantee they will get homes built through the downturn.The news comes after Robert Napier, the HCA chairman, said in October he was asking the government for permission to invest in development land while it was cheap. It also follows the release of a letter by Richard Hill, the HCA director of investment, to investment partners outlining how funding for new social housing would work.Meredith: HCA will expect an equity shareMeredith: HCA will expect an equity shareThe letter said the agency would have arrangements in place with key developing organisations by the end of March and that the HCA would consider helping associations to convert unsold homes into rented property if they agreed to build homes in future. The agency might also help associations to buy land or build on HCA-owned sites if they can do so fast and on a large scale.However, a source at the agency said: “We’ll fund 50% of acquisition costs for sites – it’s something we’ve not done before.”The source said the agency was looking for investment partners to bundle together large portfolios of schemes for potential funding by the agency. Partners were told they could expect more generous grants on stalled schemes if they identified possible new sites for homes.Dale Meredith, Southern Housing Group’s development director, said the HCA would expect an equity share in exchange for the funding. He said: “The expectation is that this land bank is to deliver future programmes. You secure part of that at good value when land values are reducing significantly.”The HCA was formed on 1 December, joining together English Partnerships, the Housing Corporation and central government funding streams. A spokesperson said he “did not recognise” the 50% figure.Meanwhile the Tenant Services Authority (TSA) is in talks with several associations that are having difficulty raising funds about providing short-term loans. The lenders are believed to include London & Quadrant, Circle Anglia, Affinity Sutton and other cash-rich associations.London & Quadrant said it was looking at a variety of ways to help struggling associations including mergers, sales of homes and short-term limited loans. Clare Miller, executive director of governance and viability at the TSA, said: “This is a short-term opportunity to plug the gap. We are not talking about associations in terminal difficulties but those that would normally borrow from banks.”

HCA will fund land purchase to kickstart housebuilding - Building

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Olympic funding decision delayed - Building

Olympic funding decision delayed15 January, 2009By Joey GardinerChancellor postpones media centre decision and approval to increase use of contingency fundsChancellor of the exchequer Alistair Darling has postponed a ministerial meeting due to sign off extra funding for the Olympics this week.According to sources close to the situation Darling had been due to meet with Olympics minister Tessa Jowell, culture secretary Andy Burnham, communities secretary Hazel Blears and transport secretary Geoff Hoon today to sign off extra government cash.The money is needed principally because of the failure of Australian developer Lend Lease to arrange the £1bn funding needed for the 2,800-home athletes' village. It is thought the meeting was set to approve drawing down more money from the £2.2bn Olympic contingency fund for that purpose.The government has already signed off £95m from the contingency fund to pay for the development of the village, on which work started in May, after Lend Lease was unable to agree funding from its backers.However, it is also thought the meeting was due to be discussing how to proceed with the media centre, following the scrapping of plans for the original £385m scheme backed by development consortium Igloo Carillion.A spokesman for the Department for Culture, Media and Sport admitted the meeting had been postponed but said it was not able to say when the meeting will be reconvened.The news comes as Tom Dacey, chief executive of Southern Housing Group said the housing association had now received full board backing for its involvement in the Olympic village, revealed by Building in December. Dacey said the board had given full sign-off to its joining in the 1st Thames Consortium of developer 1st Base and housing association East Thames Group, which will turn much of the athletes' village in to affordable housing after the games.

Olympic funding decision delayed - Building

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2009 Algarve Portugal 02-01-2009 16-00-10

2009 Algarve Portugal 02-01-2009 16-00-10
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Ink: First Memoirs: The Talk of the Town: The New Yorker

“I chose not to meet with her,” a publisher at another company said. “I got the impression that everyone was totally underwhelmed by her. That’s why there’s so little buzz.”Another publishing executive said that some of the editors who met Mrs. Bush were hoping to find “that she’s a closet Democrat, like in the Curtis Sittenfeld novel.” (Sittenfeld’s novel “American Wife,” which was purported to be inspired by Mrs. Bush’s life, portrayed the First Lady as passionately pro-choice and periodically agonizing over her husband’s hawkishness.) When the publisher who went to the White House was asked what impression of Mrs. Bush’s politics he came away with, he sighed and said, “You got the sense she’s just like him.”Even Curtis Sittenfeld, who spent months researching Mrs. Bush’s life story, is conflicted about the hypothetical memoir. “Do you remember after Brad Pitt and Jennifer Aniston separated, it was more interesting to wonder what Aniston thought than to find out what she thinks?” Sittenfeld said over the phone last week. “Sometimes when people share their thoughts it’s sort of disappointing.”

Ink: First Memoirs: The Talk of the Town: The New Yorker

2008 fARO iSLAND 30-12-2008 13-40-51

2008 fARO iSLAND 30-12-2008 13-40-51
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2008 London 19-12-2008 11-22-45

2008 London 19-12-2008 11-22-45
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Crisis Christmas

Memorial Mosaic to the Homeless

Memorial Mosaic to the Homeless
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London Councils launches framework for future government housing reforms

08 August 2008
London Councils launches framework for future government housing reforms
UK - London Councils has set out eight simple policy tests to ensure that any future government housing reforms will benefit all the capital's communities.

The tests are outlined in the document 'Rethinking Housing', launched to influence the government's housing reform green paper, which is expected later this year.

The document spells out the challenges facing London's housing market. London remains the least affordable region in the UK with 1.6 million households on social housing waiting lists.

But it also points the way forward to begin developing solutions to these challenges.


As well as the eight policy tests, Rethinking Housing sets out six key reforms that the next government housing green paper should address, including:

More freedom and flexibilities for local authorities
More effective cross agency working
More targeted help for those who are workless and homeless
Better use of the private rented sector
Better support for owner occupation
More opportunities to house homeless households."

Confederation of Co-operative Housing

Confederation of Co-operative Housing
Fairgate House,
205 Kings Road,
Tyseley,
Birmingham B11 2AA

Telephone: 0121 449 9588

<info@cch.coop>

National Tenant Voice consultation paper

[07-07-2008] The CCH has been working with TAROE (Tenants & Residents
Organisations of England), NFTMO (National Federation of Tenant
Management Organisations), CLG (Communities & Local Government) and
others to develop proposals for a National Tenant Voice. A
consultation paper has been produced which organisations and
individuals are invited to respond - even if they just wish to say
that they agree to the proposals. The closing date for the
consultation is 12 September.

Word icon National Tenant Voice consultation paper (MS Word document, 94 Kb)
[Updated 19-07-2008]

Confederation of Co-operative Housing

Confederation of Co-operative Housing
Fairgate House,
205 Kings Road,
Tyseley,
Birmingham B11 2AA

Telephone: 0121 449 9588

<info@cch.coop>

National Tenant Voice consultation paper

[07-07-2008] The CCH has been working with TAROE (Tenants & Residents
Organisations of England), NFTMO (National Federation of Tenant
Management Organisations), CLG (Communities & Local Government) and
others to develop proposals for a National Tenant Voice. A
consultation paper has been produced which organisations and
individuals are invited to respond - even if they just wish to say
that they agree to the proposals. The closing date for the
consultation is 12 September.

Word icon National Tenant Voice consultation paper (MS Word document, 94 Kb)
[Updated 19-07-2008]

2008 March 27th (5)

2008 March 27th (5)
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