Twenty Twelve
Posted: January 20, 2012 Filed under: charity, Community, Cyrenians, Homeless, homelessness | Tags: cyrenians, employment, Homelessness, prevention Leave a comment »To most it means Olympic Year. To some it is about the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee, with an extra holiday on June 5th. More esoterically but some would say more importantly, 2012 is the International Year of Cooperatives. (maybe a direction to look for those who want caring capitalism?) The UN has designated 2012 as the International Year of Sustainable Energy for All ‘to drive concrete action’ in turning our world away from the precipice. Under the wonderful slogan, ’Together with Bats,’ the UNEP Convention on Migratory Species (CMS), has deignated 2012 as The Year of the Bat to promote the wee creatures conservation. And talking of batty things, those without better things to do are focussed on 2012 (December 21st to be precise), as the end of the world and the fulfilment of the Mayan Prophecy.
Call me parochial but since 2003, Twenty Twelve has shone on the horizon as Scotland’s target date for ‘ending homelessness’.
In 2003 the Scottish Parliament passed groundbreaking legislation stating that local authorities would have a duty to provide every unintentionally homeless person with a home by 2012. From 1 January 2013 Councils will have a duty to accommodate all those who are found to be homeless - not just those fitting specific ‘priority need’ categories – and to provide the same level of service to all homeless people.
Homelessness should not be an acceptable feature in a civilised society. Since 2003 Scotland has been admired and respected across the world for its commitment. We’ve had visits here at Cyrenians from all over Europe, even Japan and China. The 2003 legislation and the marked progress since came from commitment and participation of public, private and voluntary sector, with cross-party support from the Parliament. I believe this remains the case?
The realities of early 2012 are very different to those of nine years ago. Rising demand and reducing resources will make it hard to deliver. But I hope that difficulties in reaching the target don’t lead to a blame game against the Councils. My point is that we were in it together from the start and it’s only by working together that we’ll fulfil the ambition.
Rather than blame or getting into doom mode, I suggest the ‘drive concrete action’ approach. Do what we can do. Prevent people losing their home in the first place. We’ve demonstrated how to do it. Prevent teens, where we can, from falling out of the family home into homelessness. Use the private rented sector for social housing. Get those who can into jobs so they are more resilient and able to move on. Use social enterprise to prepare people for a working life. Provide really effective help to tackle any underlying problems which un-mended will keep bringing people back into crisis.
And those are just a few examples from little Cyrenians own tool-box. Scotland is awash with good practice developed over the last decade. 2012 is still the year to end enduring homelessness in Scotland, but it will be a test of our inventiveness, solidarity in working together across sectors and collective commitment to the standard that everyone should have a home.
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What It’s All About
Posted: December 21, 2011 Filed under: charity, Cyrenians, family, food, Homeless | Tags: Community, Food, Homelessness, prevention Leave a comment »One of Cyrenians front-line Key Workers passed on this story.
‘When Nola was referred to me, her and her three children (aged 7, 6 and 2) were staying in a private let. The landlord was in the process of throwing them out, literally onto the street with their belongings. Her marriage had broken down. She was unable to pay the rent and being a refugee had no entitlement to benefits. She has no status at the moment. She was living on £10.00 per week to feed her family which came from a local church. We went to social work and they took her case on. She is now in temporary accommodation and in receipt of money equivalent to DWP payments. Her case is going through appeal process with the Home Office. Nola is doing her Learning Power Award with us and has registered for a college course. I dropped off a Christmas Hamper this morning for her and the children. This is the text that she sent’:
“My appreciation, to you and the whole of the Cyrenians as a body. Thank you very much for the care you have shown to me and my children. God bless you all for changing and transforming our life for the better. I need to let you know that this Hamper Pack we received today is the 1st ever in our family am glad the children will have smiles on their faces this Christmas. Thank you, Nola”
We are privileged to be able to help. But wish we didn’t have to.
Happy Christmas everbody. And thanks for all the support in 2011. Love xxx
Flocks Away!
Posted: December 14, 2011 Filed under: charity, environment | Tags: cyrenians, Environment, Food Leave a comment »Last week’s storm added to our homelessness problems at Cyrenians Farm. Just after 2pm, during the height of the gusts, one of our chicken houses relocated 100 metres and over a fence to the new orchard. This was an unplanned move and came as a bit of a surprise to us, but probably an even bigger one to the chooks sheltering within.
The farm letter to Santa will have to be re-written. Can you get a new chicken arc in a sack ?
From here...
...to here
Getting the Measure of Alcohol
Posted: December 5, 2011 Filed under: alcohol, charity, Community, family, homelessness | Tags: alcohol, Charity, Homelessness Leave a comment »On any given day Cyrenians has about 60 Key Workers out there locally, supporting our customers to achieve big things for themselves. For some it might be getting a home. For others, a job. Or the focus might be on improving family relationships, health or developing confidence so that they can get to a better place in their life.
About 3 years ago we realised that we were not as good as we could be at supporting our generic Key Workers to talk with their customers about alcohol – not unless it was the problem, in which case we have specialist workers and services. But drinking can be a problem that sits beneath. It can creep up. We may not always be aware of the links between our alcohol use and other problems or concerns. If our situation – health, housing, employment, relationships – is already fragile, high alcohol use is likely to make things worse. That’s why it’s important that we talk about alcohol and understand it well. Funding from Comic Relief has been used to make this better.
Our Getting the Measure website has now gone live. It is aimed at people supporting others and is packed with information and resources. We’ve also this week published the GtM Evalution Report by Create Concultancy, aimed at being of wider interest and use to agencies wanting to provide better alcohol interventions. I hope that these resources are an encouragement and of real use in helping.
On the 27th March we will be holding a one day conference, where we will be inviting local authority commissioners, representatives from Alcohol and Drug Partnerships, policy makers and senior health care professionals to join our discussion and help shape a cross-sector, preventative approach to Scotland’s problem with alcohol. Contact jennyziltener@cyrenians.org.uk to register in advance.
The social cost of alcohol use in Scotland is too high – and getting higher – particularly to young people and those with the least reason not to drink:
- The number of people with alcoholic liver disease in Scotland has risen by 400% between 1996 and 2008.
- 50% of Scotland’s prison population say they were drunk at the time of their offence.
- The estimated annual cost of alcohol use in Scotland is £3.56bn
We have a long way to go in Scotland in changing the culture around drinking. Getting the Measure will at least ensure that the most at risk are being better supported by more confident and informed helpers.
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Family mediation helps prevent youth homelessness
Posted: November 18, 2011 Filed under: charity, Community, Cyrenians, family, Homeless, homelessness | Tags: Homelessness, prevention, welfare benefits 1 Comment »
Emma outside Parliament demonstrating the scale of the problem
A week on from yet another event at the Parliament and everyone in the office is heartily sick of jelly babies! Six thousand of them were used to graphically demonstrate the number of young people who become homeless in Scotland every year. Even in the best of times the biggest trigger for youth homelessness is family breakdown. These are not the best of times.
Despite sterling efforts from everyone concerned in Scotland - councils, charities, housing associations – the numbers at risk can only be rising. Not just youth joblessness, but the unemployment of parents, lowering real incomes and rising cost of living all increase the pressure within families, with relationships already fragile through the teen years.
Add to that the growing shortage of affordable housing, benefit reforms and growing gaps in the welfare safety net from the cuts and we have a dangerous cocktail of conditions that remind me of the last shocking tidal wave of youth homelessness I witnessed in the early nineties when we had to resort at one point to putting sleeping bags on the office floor at night.
But Cyrenians are not moaners or scaremongers. Cyrenians latest report Mediation & Homelessness is based on a study of the use of mediation over the last 10 years to prevent young people ending up homeless by crashing out of the family home. We offer it as a pragmatic and cost effective solution. Emma Dore has done a wonderful job of presenting clear and compelling evidence that properly targeted and trained mediation services are an important part of the tool-kit for preventing youth homelessness.
We’re leaving it to others to crunch the numbers and calculate if the intervention actually saves money and makes it an attractive proposition to funders in austere times. We quote other research that shows a saving of £3,229 per case. But far more compelling is the evidence from practice of lives changed by being helped to talk to each other and sort out problems before they end in breakdown that costs years of misery. Click here to watch the short film about Cyrenians Amber service.
Cyrenians need support to be able to keep supporting over 3,000 people a year
Call to Invest in Prevention
Posted: November 3, 2011 Filed under: Cyrenians, Homeless, homelessness, welfare benefits | Tags: Community, cyrenians, Homelessness, prevention, welfare benefits Leave a comment »It was alarm clock set for 05.00 a.m. and a taxi booked for an interview on Good Morning Scotland alongside ‘Laura’ – one of the 400 people a year being helped by us to avoid homelessness. Then came the call from the studio to say we’re bumped from the schedule by a breaking news story. Ironically – some would say – that breaking story was about the Occupy Camp in Glasgow agreeing to resite to Kelvingrove. I was disappointed for Laura. She is passionate about sharing her experience in the hope that others look for help before the problems become overwhelming. Still, we’ve been filmed for STV news this evening and the story is out on media portals.
We’re launching our report today - reception at the Scottish Parliament this evening – demonstrating that acting early to prevent people at risk from losing their home saves the person from the misery of homelessness while also making savings for the local authority and allowing them to concentrate resources on the long term homeless with more intransigent problems.
We’re reporting a 99% success rate in working with around 400 people a year, with success measured by the fact that, one year on from our help, those people had not presented to the Council as homeless. A more detailed evaluation of 50 cases reveals that the people helped are not just surviving but in many cases thriving as a result, with improved health and well-being, improved income, less isolation and better job prospects.
Everyone concerned has done a truly great job in designing and delivering the Homelessness Prevention Service, including our partners at City of Edinburgh Council. We think it has the potential to be rolled out across Scotland to prevent 1,000′s of people a year from losing their homes and sliding into deeper problems. Every success is a resource saving for local authorities: saving the cost of temporary accommodation and even recovering rent arrears.
So today we’re calling out to everyone and anyone who can help make this a reality across Scotland: local councils, the Government, the business sector, funders, researchers… We’ve got a scalable model that clearly works, so let’s make full use of it in preventing the misery of homelessness where we can, and in the process saving resources that can be targeted at those already homeless and with more complex and enduring needs.
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Making it Work for Young People
Posted: October 14, 2011 Filed under: Cyrenians, homelessness, Work | Tags: employment, Homelessness, welfare benefits Leave a comment »Sadie is one of the 21.3% of young people in the UK whose lives are stalled by the lack of employment opportunity on statistics released yesterday. She is one of the 114,000 young people in the UK who have, only over the summer, joined the queue waiting for a chance to fulfill their potential through work. She is one of the more-than 1 in 5 and rising young adults whose ambitions are being stymied, confidence eroded and self esteem sucked out by the day side-lined from gainful employment.
Training for work at Cyrenians Farm
Sadie graduated with a first from Glasgow University in May. She’s a creative, energetic 22 year old. Since her 16th birthday she’s always worked, alongside studying. She’s been a barista, cleaner, waitress, till worker, coat check girl… In her spare time she’s played violin with the Scottish Schools Orchestra, toured with experimental Glasgow band Yahweh, volunteered with kiddies and asylum seekers and travelled. Bright, highly personable and ambitious to make a positive contribution to the world, you’d think a young woman like Sadie would be embraced and nurtured by the working world? But then I would think that, wouldn’t I? I’m her Dad.
She’ll be alright. But what chance in the current state of things for some of the young people who we work with at Cyrenians? Each one as precious a human being as my Sadie, and equally deserving of the chance to contribute and be rewarded by work. But in our residential service, for example, over 70% had damaged childhoods, most left school without qualifications, half have offending records and 50% are trying to manage diagnosed mental health issues. It’s tricky because Cyrenians believe every one of them should be on a pathway and have aspirations and the prospect of a rewarding working life, but we’ve got to be realistic. Even if jobs were out there, it’s a heck of a long steep path for the young people carrying the heaviest burdens and least equipped to carry them.
What can be done? Practically I mean. For young people with mainstream needs, Community Jobs Scotland is a good start but its too small. And why wait til young people have been unemployed for 6 months? Cyrenians has been allocated just 2 posts. I hope this is considerably scaled up by the Scottish Government in 2012/13. For young people disadvantaged by homelessness, damaged childhoods and associated problems, Scotland’s New Futures Fund (1998 – 2005) was the most effective scheme I’ve witnessed – and I’m still puzzled by why it stopped? ‘NFF projects are able to achieve extremely good results with a very difficult client group, not only in terms of moving people onto the stepping stones towards the labour market, but also into work.’ (Evaluation Report, May 2005). At least 55% achieved progress and nearly a quarter stepped into further education or jobs: a remarkable outcome given the starting point for most. Why not revive that here in Scotland? It will prevent and save more than it costs.
We’re also busily here designing new initiatives in our social enterprise workplaces to give at least a few more young people the opportunity and support to start a good working life.
A Hand Up, Not a Hand Out
Posted: October 3, 2011 Filed under: charity, Community, CSR, Cyrenians, environment, food, homelessness | Tags: Environment, Food, welfare benefits, Working with Businesses Leave a comment »FareShare has hit the media big time over the weekend. Cyrenians provides one of 17 services across the UK that together contribute to 8.6 million meals a year with surplus product donated by the food industry. Donated fresh food is quality checked and distributed by volunteers from our Leith warehouse to supply 43 charity kitchens around Lothian to supplement their food budget and add value to their menu. (“Aw no, not salmon en croute again,” a customer of a local shelter kitchen was famously heard saying to a delivery team!)
As the National Survey reports, we’re looking for more food donors in Scotland, more volunteers to help run the Programme and financial support so that we can increase the impact we’re making.
It’s a brilliant service: “A triumph of common sense,” as Sir Tom Farmer called it on one of his visits. Charities for the homeless have some decent fare to put in front of folk, as well as help and advice from our food team. Large quantities of food is diverted from land-fill. And dozens of people who were homeless are helping run the warehouse and delivery vans; helping their recovery while helping others. To that we add cookery classes for over 200 people a year and their carers. From Day One - back in the year 2000 – we’ve been determined that the Programme is a hand-up, not just a hand out. We want to see food used to bring people together and forward in their lives.
For that reason we’ve not publicised our limited work to date in distributing Emergency Food Packs to individuals and families who are receiving other services. We think we’d already be swamped by demand and this will certainly rise as the welfare reforms roll out.
But our Thinking Hats are firmly on again given the evidence of growing need. We welcome ideas and suggestions – even proposals – about how else to provide food help in tackling the poverty in our midst without creating dependence or tackling a mountain with a teaspoon.
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Dealing with Reality
Posted: September 23, 2011 Filed under: charity, CSR, Cyrenians, volunteering | Tags: cyrenians, employment, welfare benefits, Working with Businesses Leave a comment »The Scottish Budget debate is taking place in Holyrood as I write this but we already know the outcome. It may have been delayed in coming to Scotland but the new reality has arrived. We might wish things were different but Cyrenians’ challenge from here is to adapt to being a force for good with much less public funding to hand and many more people in need of help.
One way of doing this is through our partnerships with the business community. There are lots of examples if you read down this blog, but it’s always exciting to start new relationships. Last Friday we started a new 12 week project with a team from Scottish Gas. They are going to work with our front-line teams to research the mounting financial challenges faced by tenants on the fragile margins who are one bad break or one mistake away from homelessness. We’ll use that research to create some better help for them. This new corporate relationship is brokered and faciltated by our friends at the excellent Three Hands: lovely people doing a great job, and ever more important job in the new reality.
Our Community Gardens ventures typify another creative approach to the problem: bringing together volunteering, local community activism and local assets – like unused land – to make lots of good things happen for relatively low cost. Look at this link to see how busy the calendar of activities is at the Royal Edinburgh Gardens. Inspiring Scotland is currently rolling out a new initiative called Link-Up to promote low cost/high impact community activity.
Alongside the development of Cyrenians Social Enterprises, we’ve these few things to build on to ensure that Cyrenians remains a force for good whatever happens with public funding.
Harder to deal with will be the reality facing people who no longer have jobs in the public sector or the housing benefits to afford their home.
Crisis in the Making
Posted: September 9, 2011 Filed under: Cyrenians, homelessness | Tags: Community, cyrenians, Homelessness, welfare benefits Leave a comment »Our good friends at Crisis are doing a great job in highlighting the incipient rise in homelessness in the UK. London has seen an 8% increase in rough sleeping. South-of-the-Border research shows a 14% increase in people living suitcase lives in B&B’s after presenting as homeless. Unless some of the current policies are reversed, things are only going to get worse, and all over the UK. It stands to reason.
David Orr, chief executive of the National Housing Federation, summarises the general housing crisis in his blog: ‘How bad does it have to get? Thousands locked out of any prospect of being able to buy a home, private rents soaring, the lowest level of new house building for 90 years and a growing population.’ Add to this the growing gap between supply and demand for social, affordable housing. 
The Westminster Government’s plans to break the link between housing benefit and the actual cost of local rents, new benefit sanctions that could hit the most vulnerable and to limit housing benefit for people aged 25 – 34 to the price of a single room all contribute to weakening the grip of the unemployed and low waged on the lower rungs of the accommodation ladder. (I’m urging supporters to join Crisis in campaigning against the DWP benefit changes).
For those who slip or fall from the ladder, cuts on local authority spending will have stretched, weakened and made big holes in the safety net. (Our Homeless Prevention team are already reporting delays in getting urgent help, such as CAB appointments).
I’m immensely proud of Scotland having the most progressive legislation and strategy to tackle homelessness in Europe, and we have achieved many years of steady progress in reducing the numbers and improving provision and the help for people to turn their lives around. It is galling to see things reverse. Here at Cyrenians we are busily replanning and working with our partners in all sectors of the community to prepare for what we sadly know is coming.
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