Homeless charities, led by Thames Reach, joined forces with the Government to deliver a new ambition to employ at least 10% of their workforce from ex-homeless people.
The new plan, backed by £200,000 of investment, will help around 800 people to find work in the voluntary sector over the next 2 years. The initiative will focus on the 46 biggest homeless organisations before moving on to other smaller charities across England.
Under the scheme, homeless charities will be given a bespoke consultancy service to help them employ ex-homeless people. The charities will get support to set up training courses across many areas of their business, including IT, finance and client counselling.
Often ex-homeless people are best placed to support homeless people, through drawing on their own experiences. This can help end the revolving door of homelessness and avoid a return to the streets.
This programme will be one of the measures that will form part of the Government's updated rough sleeping strategy, to be released later this year. New annual figures show a continued fall in the number of rough sleepers to 483, on any given night - a 74% reduction from the 1,850 figure in 1998.
New national statistics show great strides have been made in cutting homelessness with the number of those accepted as homeless having been halved since the same time five years ago. The statistics also show the number of households living temporary accommodation has fallen by more than 10,000 since this time last year.
Shelter published a new, easy to use guide on accessing accommodation and housing support for asylum seekers and refugees in England and Wales.
The handy guide is targeted at asylum seekers and refugees who want to know more about what housing support they are entitled to, and will be a useful resource for anyone providing advice to this group on housing issues.
The guide provides straightforward answers to questions such as - how to apply for housing support, what support is available if an asylum application has been unsuccessful - and other common problems.
Costing only 55p, the guide offers a basic introduction to this area of law and also contains details of other relevant organisations that can offer further advice, including Shelter.
Shelter's Editorial manager, Naomi Anders, author of the guide, said:
"It's not always easy to find out what housing support is available for asylum seekers and refugees, and it can be a confusing area of law.
We hope this handy guide will simplify the system and help people access accurate information about their housing rights."
