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Sadiq Khan provides funding for veterans homelessness charity
The mayor of London has committed more than £180,000 to help ex-army personnel who are facing homelessness.
Sadiq Khan has teamed up with charity Veterans Aid to support a project to help veterans off the street or who are facing homelessness in London.
Rough sleeping data last year revealed that more than 8,000 people were seen sleeping rough. Of these, 132 had served in the UK armed forces.
Veterans Aid’s ‘Welfare to Wellbeing’ project has been in operation since 2003 and last helped 411 veterans who were homeless or at risk of becoming homeless.
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The mayor has provided £182,824 funding, which will be match-funded by Veterans Aid and is expected to help more than 300 veterans over a three-year period from January next year.
The services on offer through the project include:
- Immediate emergency accommodation for veterans with the aim to secure long-term housing
- Access to food, toiletries, medical care and healthcare, including counselling
- Streamlined services to speed up the process of identifying and referring veterans who are homeless, or at risk at homelessness, in every London borough
- Providing counselling, rehabilitation, and skills and job training
Previous mayor Boris Johnson supported Veterans Aid with a one-year grant of £56,000 in 2013/14, which provided emergency accommodation to former veterans.
Last week the mayor launched a new campaign, ‘No one needs to sleep rough in London’, which brings together 18 charities to form a coalition and a single donation point. The fundraising drive has raised more than £55,000 in five days.
The mayor has also changed City Hall policy to ensure that free emergency homeless shelters providing bedding, showers and food will now be open whenever temperatures in London fall below zero. Under Mr Johnson’s mayorship, emergency shelters only opened after three consecutive days of sub-zero temperatures had been forecast.
Mr Khan said: “It is shameful that anyone in London feels they have no choice other than to end up on the streets. That is why I’m investing record levels in vital services to make sure no-one needs to sleep rough.
“As part of this, I want to make sure the right services are there to help our veterans – this new funding will help ex-service men and women who have dedicated their lives to protecting the public, and who now deserve our help getting back on their feet.”
Dr Hugh Milroy, chief executive of Veterans Aid, said: “We are delighted to have the mayor’s support for our work; veterans are generally resilient individuals but they are not immune from life’s crises and there is no crisis greater than homelessness.
“Our Welfare to Wellbeing model is a pathway, not a quick fix, but its outcomes are sustainable. Last year we helped 411 new clients and suitably housed 154 veterans – but in many cases, we had to deal with underlying problems first. We also had to ensure that those men and women had the means to sustain independent living.”
