Partnerships awarded over £8.3m to tackle homelessness in Wales

Three new partnerships in Wales have been awarded over £8.3m of National Lottery funding to help tackle homelessness.

Partnerships of organisations from the third, public, and private sectors will use grants from The National Lottery Community Fund to help end homelessness.

Plans include early intervention and prevention, specialist trauma-informed services, and support for people who have the most complex needs.

Wales Director at The National Lottery Community Fund, John Rose, said: ‘These partnerships show the crucial role that working together across sectors makes to tackling homelessness. Homelessness can affect anyone for a variety of reasons and we’re glad to be able to support the shared aim of making homelessness rare, brief and non-recurring. National Lottery players raise more than £30 million each week for good causes across the UK each week and projects such as these show what a vital difference those players contribute to communities.’

Homelessness charity Llamau will lead a partnership of organisations in Cardiff to support young people who are homeless or at risk of becoming homeless, after receiving a £3,383,157 grant.

Francis Beecher, Chief Executive of Llamau, commented: ‘We’d all like to say a huge thank you to National Lottery players for raising this generous funding to deliver the collaborative project “My Way Home”.

‘We cannot end homelessness unless we end youth homelessness as nearly 50% of adults first experienced homelessness as young people. For too long, young people have been discriminated against for their natural responses to the trauma they have experienced. Unequal access to services, and environments where young people do not feel safe and nurtured mean they disengage and repeat homelessness can happen.

‘”My Way Home’ will identify young people at risk of becoming homeless and prevent this occurring. Where we cannot prevent homelessness, we intend to make this rare, brief and non-recurrent, providing an enhanced range of trauma informed and person-centred services, so young people can leave homelessness behind for good. Llamau is really excited and proud to lead this innovative project, working closely with all our brilliant partners to deliver real change for young people across Cardiff.’

The other partnerships include a project led by charity The Wallich to develop a social enterprise designed by people with experience of homelessness, creating and delivering training and employment opportunities for people that are homeless, and another project led by the same charity to support people with complex needs in Swansea and Neath Port Talbot.

In Spring 2022, The National Lottery Community Fund will announce details on a second round of the programme that will offer £3 million of National Lottery money to target homelessness in rural areas.

In related news, new figures that show a 17% fall in people rough sleeping in London are ‘encouraging’, but more work is needed to continue the progress as the cost-of-living crisis worsens, says Homeless Link.

Photo by Mihály Köles