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Councils retract funding and property from homelessness charity

Finance | Niki May Young | 23 Aug 2010

A homelessness charity for young people in the Cotswolds has lost 40 per cent of its funding and the tenancy it has held on a sheltered property for 19 years after a shake up in local council.

After months of discussions resulting from reviews of the service by government funding initiative Supporting People, Gloucestershire County Council has withdrawn its £116,000 annual grant from Cirencester Housing for Young People (CHYP) and Cotswold District Council has revoked the tenancy at its primary property.

The charity has provided over 500 homeless 16-25 year olds in the Cotswolds with accommodation solutions and support to develop housing stability over 24 years. But CHYP vice chairman Sandy Price said the funding was retracted and the charity branded a “failing service”, due to its slow progression rate: “This is the crux of the problem at the moment,” she said, “I think what has happened with Supporting People is they want to see a higher pass-through.”

Gloucestershire Council disagree, arguing that it has seen a "worrying rise in drop-out rates from the CHYP project."

The voluntary sector has to "jump through hoops"

CHYP’s £290,000 turnover was largely sustained by the grant which equated to 40 per cent of the charity’s income, but Price believes a catalogue of inconsistencies following a council shake-up have led to the retraction of this funding.

“I think that everybody in the voluntary sector recognises that you have to jump through a lot of hoops to get funding and we have amended our strategy throughout the years to accommodate. But there has been no consistency in the way our situation has been handled. There has been a lot of political change in both the district and the county council and I think in changing to a cabinet council, well, we’ve lost confidence.”

In particular Price noted the review which led to the dispute was undertaken by a new member of staff in November and two different reports were received by the charity.

But the council maintains that support is being withdrawn because the service provided by CHYP is not adequate. A spokesperson said that the charity “failed to help the young people to move on and become independent – there was no support in getting into employment or becoming an independent member of the community.”

“We have looked really closely at the services CHYP provide and found, disappointingly, that they were not giving the level of support we wanted or fulfilling the conditions of their contract,” she added. “Council staff tried hard to help CHYP improve, but it is clear now that a new provider is needed.” A new service provider has already been found, Civil Society was told.

Many residents should still be in care

But Price believes that the problems originate with Supporting People which provided a stream of 16 and 17 year old users for the charity’s facilities, despite the charity catering for those up to 25 years old. Younger people are less likely to gain stable employment or to be accepted by private landlords, she said, and so stay within the CHYP system for longer than older residents.

"To be quite honest I think a lot of the people who have been sent to us should still be in care," she added. "Because they have very severe problems we’ve had violence and threats against our staff, damage to the properties and on a few occasions we’ve been forced to evict the resident. And Supporting People don’t like that, they don’t want there to be any evictions but we have to protect our staff."

The charity will continue to provide its service for ten residents at its two remaining properties. While Price advised Civil Society that she would be meeting with Gloucestershire Council to discuss the continuing service to the seven residents affected by the tenancy retraction, the council advised: "We will work hard to ensure (the young people currently using the service) are not directly affected; our long term aim is to improve the service they receive."

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