Look Ahead Housing and Care was presented with the first prize in the Andy Ludlow Homelessness Award 2006, at a special ceremony organised by London councils. The housing charity's Customer Involvement Programme - based in Kensington and Chelsea - saw off the challenge of five other short-listed projects to collect the £10,000 top prize.
The Awards are organised by London councils to highlight good practice and innovative ways of tackling and reducing homelessness across the capital. They are supported by Shelter, London Housing Foundation, and the Department for Communities and Local Government.
Look Ahead Housing and Care provide temporary accommodation for homeless people through 72 supported housing projects, including hostels in Aldgate Victoria, Earls Court, and Bayswater. Its Customer Involvement Programme provides homeless people with training, to enable them to become active participants in shaping and developing Look Ahead's service. The skills they learn are also designed to help them improve their quality of life through finding work and a permanent home.
Around 100 people have benefited from the project since it started 18 months ago, and Look Ahead hopes 200 more will be able to gain from the training scheme over the next year.
The organisation plans to use the £10,000 prize money to pay for an external evaluation of the scheme and help towards publishing a good practice guide to help others benefit from their experience.
Three projects received £5,000 each after being named as runners up:
Cardboard Citizens - This Way Up
This is the largest multi-arts based programme of its kind, providing 750 homeless people a year with weekly workshops in circus skills, dance, music writing, and theatre. The project is based in Tower Hamlets.
East Thames - Working Future
East Thames use the government funding it receives to reduce the rents for temporary accommodation leased from the private sector and for providing training to help people find work.
Newham Offender Floating Support
This project works with offenders with a background of substance misuse. It aims to help these people achieve and sustain independent living.
The Andy Ludlow Homelessness Awards were established in 1999 as a memorial to the late Director of Housing and Social Services in LB Haringey.
The Housing Corporation called on housing associations to increase their focus on prevention as it launched its new homelessness strategy, with a commitment to reviewing regulatory requirements underpinning housing associations' role in tackling homelessness.
The strategy focuses on:
The Strategy, entitled Tackling Homelessness, sets the following objectives:
Copies of the strategy are available on the Housing Corporation website: www.housingcorp.gov.uk.
The youth homelessness charity Centrepoint launched an urgent appeal to raise the £252,900 necessary to support the 800 young people that sleep securely in Centrepoint services over the Christmas period.
Centrepoint chief executive, Anthony Lawton, said: "Our 'Countdown to Christmas' appeal is of vital importance to allow us to run our services over Christmas and the New Year. For most young homeless people, Christmas is a time of loneliness, when they feel their isolation intensely. Winter cold can make homeless young people even more susceptible to ill health and the apparent 'kind' offers by dangerous people. Young people have very different rough sleeping patterns to older people. They are less likely to sleep visibly on the streets, they try to hide for safety, and may stay in a stairwell of a block of flats or stay on night buses where they feel less threatened. With the help of the public's donations we can offer a warm bed, hot food, and the support a young person needs to make a fresh start."
To support Centrepoint this Christmas call the donation line on 0800 23 23 20 or text SAFE to 84862.
Tyneside Cyrenians officially open The Garden Rooms, a complex of office space, six bedrooms and communal bathrooms, built entirely by homeless men with no previous construction experience.
It has been a life altering experience for the previously unemployed men involved, seven of whom have now gained construction qualifications, started new jobs and moved into their own homes.
Speaking at the official opening, Jenny Edwards, Chief Executive of the national umbrella group Homeless Link, said: "What is particularly inspiring is the fact that involvement in the construction helped these men stabilise their previously chaotic lifestyles, making it possible to move into their own homes. We hope this project will be taken up as a model throughout the UK."
A new report, published forty years after the influential television play Cathy Come Home was first screened, reviews housing policy since 1966, with a special focus on the Eastern Region. Bringing it all Back Home, published by the Chartered Institute of Housing Eastern Branch, includes co-author Alan Brigham's focus on Romsey Town, a working class district of Cambridge. His focus on personal stories shows how broader changes have impacted upon individuals and neighbourhoods.
Co-author Colin Wiles looks at the bigger picture and reviews forces that have shaped housing and society since the 1960s. He also airs some controversial opinions on building on the countryside, challenging anti-development views, and the state of the planning system.
New research from St Mungo's, London's leading homeless charity, shows that 1 in 10 homeless people became homeless due to depression.
Peter Cockersell, St Mungo's director said: "Although counselling is recognised as the best treatment for depression, there is no funding for psychological therapy in homeless hostels. If we had a counsellor based in each of our hostels, savings of up to £6000 a person could be made. With almost 700 hostel beds across London, and around half of our residents having a mental health problem that could be a saving of around £2 million."
Last year, St Mungo's helped 1200 homeless people with their mental health problems, through informal counselling sessions, assessments and referrals. Their funding excludes them from providing formal, structured counselling sessions.
