Leading North East charity for the homeless to pilot national scheme
Thursday 14 December 2006 - Leading North East charity, Tyneside Cyrenians, which specialises in supporting homeless and vulnerable people, has been selected to deliver an innovative pilot scheme aimed at helping people find suitable accommodation and secure, quality employment.
The Transitional Spaces Project (TSP) aims, over the next three years, to help 300 people escape from the difficult-to-break way of living – that is - benefits-dependency and reliance on hostel and supported housing accommodation. TSP will address the twin problems of endemic worklessness and a lack of move-on accommodation by providing intensive support to get people into work and enable them to secure homes within the private rented sector.
National charity ‘Off the Streets and into Work’ (OSW) is leading the project and will focus its efforts on London and Tyneside Cyrenians are responsible for the project throughout the North East. Linda Butcher, Chief Executive at OSW said;
‘The real challenge of getting people into work is all about whether it is sustainable, whether it is a job worth doing, whether it helps to lift people out of poverty and whether it enables people to acquire suitable, long-term accommodation. Too often homeless people enter, and remain on, the bottom rung of the job ladder. Without the scope to progress to a better job, a higher level of income, a decent home it is a self-fulfilling prophecy that they cannot move away from poverty and dependency.’
Stephen Bell, Chief Executive of Tyneside Cyrenians continued:
‘We are immensely pleased to be the chosen partner in this national project. Our aim throughout will be to enable hostel residents in the region to gain access to employment and to live in their own home. By doing so we will be providing life changing opportunities; the Transitional Spaces Project can help those taking part to ‘get back on track’.
‘We know from our extensive experience that homeless people want to both work and to live independently in a home of their own. Our most recent and visible example is the ‘Self Builder’ team who this summer completed their training in construction and have now secured full time jobs and moved into their own homes.
‘The TSP will be a tremendous way of extending this type of support to a much larger group. We are very excited about the prospect of being able to offer a real chance of sustainable change to a significant number of people.’
The project is supported by the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP). Commenting on the initiative, DWP Minister, Rt Hon Jim Murphy MP, said:
‘Many homeless people aspire to work and so we have made important steps to join-up labour market policy with housing and homelessness. Ground-breaking partnerships with local authorities and the voluntary sector mean that the Government has made huge strides in tackling homelessness, but there is more to do.
‘TSP will provide intensive support to homeless people in finding and keeping employment and allow them to make a sustainable move from temporary hostel accommodation into the private rented sector. This involves not just financial support but practical and motivational support such as help with job-search, training, mentoring and financial literacy. This project will help shift the focus from simply getting a job to thinking about a career and a permanent home – working to end the cycle of deprivation.’
TSP is sponsored by the Department for Communities and Local Government and funded through HM Treasury’s Invest to Save Budget and the London Housing Foundation.
Anyone interested in finding out more about the project, or those currently working with clients who may benefit from the project, please contact either John Dryden on 0191 296 6080 or j.dryden@tcuk.org or Mark Sidney on 0191 273 8891 or m.sidney@tcuk.org
