New scheme to combat street begging launched

Fundraising | Stephen Bain | 28 Jan 2011

Homelessness charity The Passage has teamed up with the Victoria Business Improvement District to launch an initiative to reduce street begging around London Victoria.

The Diverted Giving scheme aims to persuade members of the public to donate money to tackle the problem via boxes marked with the charity’s distinctive logo, rather than giving directly to beggars.

Some 50 counter-top boxes and four floor-standing boxes have been placed in and around Victoria.

Production and installation costs are paid for by Victoria BID and the income generated will help pay for schemes co-ordinated by The Passage, which are each designed to help "provide resources which encourage, inspire, and challenge homeless people to transform their lives".

Housing minister Grant Shapps, who attended the launch of Diverted Giving last week, commented: “Local businesses have an issue with aggressive street begging. We wanted to come up with a solution that would address the issue of begging in the long-term.”

Mike Clarke, chief executive of The Passage, added: “People know that the money they give will be used well and that can only be a good thing. The project sees about 200 people a day and to know that the money is going straight to the frontline is great.”

Clarke also expressed interest in making the project longer- term if it is successful this year.

Comments

[Cancel] | Reply to:

Name *

Email *

Organisation

Job Title

Comments *

Verification *

* Please read our Community Standards

Close »

Community Standards

The civilsociety.co.uk community and comments board is intended as a platform for informed and civilised debate.

We hope to encourage a broad range of views, however, there are standards that we expect commentators to uphold. We reserve the right to delete or amend any comments that do not adhere to these standards.

We welcome:

Robust but respectful debate
Strongly held opinions
Intelligent relevant discussion
The sharing of relevant experiences
New participants

We will not publish:

Rude, threatening, offensive, obscene or abusive language, or links to such material
Links to commercial organisations or spam postings. The comments board is not an advertising platform
The posting of contact details for yourself or others
Comments intended for malicious purpose or mindless abuse
Comments purporting to be from another person or organisation under false pretences
Gratuitous criticism, commentary or self-promotion
Any material which breaches copyright or privacy laws, or could be considered libellous
The use of the comments board for the pursuit or extension of personal disputes

Be aware:

Views expressed on the comments board are left at users’ discretion and are in no way views held or supported by Civil Society Media
Comments left by others may not be accurate, do not rely on them as fact
You may be misunderstood - sarcasm and humour can easily be taken out of context, try to be clear

Please:

Enjoy the opportunity to express your opinion and respect the right of others to express theirs
Confine your remarks to issues rather than personalities

Together we can keep our community a polite, respectful and intelligent platform for discussion.