You are viewing 1 of your 1 free articles
Housing association will not revoke homeless charity eviction notices
A Midlands housing association which handed a homelessness charity based in one of its buildings an eviction notice has said it will not review the decision.
Midland Heart, which owns around 32,500 homes across the region, has given the Hope Centre 12 months to leave Oasis House in Northampton.
The landlord said it wants “to deliver a wider range of life-changing services” at Oasis House.
The move has provoked a backlash, with a petition calling on Midland Heart to withdraw the eviction notice gathering more than 10,000 signatures.
Jeremy Corbyn, who previously visited Oasis House, has also waded into the debate, calling the decision “appalling and senseless”.
But a letter sent by Glenn Harris, chief executive of Midland Heart, to a campaigner against the eviction said “it is not our intention to revisit or revoke our decision”.
READ MORE
The letter, seen by Inside Housing, claims the changes will help tackle growing rough sleeping in Northampton.
“The decision is not a judgement on the work of the Hope Centre or its staff and should not be seen as such,” it states.
“The changes we are making will provide much-needed additional homeless accommodation and potentially, in partnership with Northampton Borough Council’s Nightshelter, beds for women rough sleeping in Northampton.”
Mr Harris adds that the Hope Centre’s work “can be delivered from another venue with limited impact” on people using its services.
And he argues: “The facilities the Hope Centre have access to in Oasis House are not specialist in nature and were installed and paid for by Midland Heart.
“It is not our belief that the Hope Centre will be at significant financial loss when they move from Oasis House next year, as the cost of the larger more expensive items such as a fully fitted kitchen, shower facilities and meeting rooms were met by Midland Heart.”
He also claims that because the Hope Centre only uses communal space in Oasis House between 9am and 1pm six days a week, reversing the decision to evict the charity would leave space empty which could otherwise be used as overnight accommodation “while women unnecessarily sleep on the streets of Northampton”.
“This situation would be the result of the Hope Centre not being willing rather than not being able to relocate.”
Robin Burgess, chief executive of the Hope Centre, said: “Hope is hoping to engage Midland Heart’s senior management in discussion aimed at the revocation of the notice, and we await progress on that.”
He dismissed Mr Harris’s suggestion that the Hope Centre could move from Oasis House without significant financial loss as “nonsense” and said the charity faces “real risk of closure”.
