Homeless Project

The St Mary-le-Bow Young Homeless project is an independent charitable trust (registration number 1103578) which emerged from the support of the Parochial Church Council.

We take up to ten young homeless people, aged 18 to 24, from London's hostels and the streets into large and safe flats owned by The Peabody Trust.

  + we give them time to recover

  + we help them to find out and to do what they would like to do and can do

  + we help them with further education and training for the work they would like to do

  + we help them with life skills and budgeting, so that when they get their own flats they will be able to live in

  stability and independence.

  + when they are ready for that independence, we can help them with the deposit and key monies for their

  own flats

  + if they have any difficulties when they have moved to an independent life, we both help them and have

  them back to this Project until they are ready to try again

  + in the twelve years we have been doing these things, none of the young people has reverted to the streets

  and homelessness

We have three to four large airy flats rented to us by the Peabody Trust until the Trust wants them back for full renovation. These short-term assured tenancies have worked well for both The Peabody Trust and this Project from the beginning. Presently we are in Tower Hamlets in the East End of London. Peabody charges us less-than-market rent, and when the Trust wants the flats back for full renovation, we have been fortunate in being given others in different parts of London.

The aim is to help young homeless people to move to stable independence. We are different from most similar organizations in that we do not make a time limit: each young person may stay for as long as s/he needs. This may be for three months, it may be for three years. Some may need this project on and off for many years. Some may need it all their lives.

We take those who are not weighed down by Class A drug habits, major alcohol or mental problems - because we do not have the large staff needed for them. All others may come and when they have recovered somewhat from the grimnesses that caused and were part of their homelessness, we help them with training and education towards work and independence. The final aim is to help them with key money and deposits for their own independent flats and to make sure they know how to survive in them.

The Project is run by two people. Both have worked for many years with young homeless people. One taught literacy and numeracy to them, the other gained experience at Centrepoint's hostels for young homeless people, and is a Magistrate on the Youth Court and a Director of The Depaul Trust for Homeless Youth.

They write and word process their own letters, work free from a house and have no need of an office and its expenses. The Project is an independent charity, supported by St Mary-le-Bow, and a Committee controls the operation sympathetically; it consists of a Partner in IBM, the Charity Administrator to a senior City Livery Company, and a senior partner in a City law firm, the Project's Director, and others.

The Project costs £75,000 a year, being inexpensive in comparison with other homelessness organizations.We depend entirely on grants made by the City, by grant-making trusts, and by foundations. The City particularly has been sympathetic to this work since its beginning. The Masters and Clerks and Wardens of Livery Companies have been to see what we do, the Partners of law firms, members of Merchant Banks, have come to talk about it, and all of them have understood its simplicity and effectiveness. This is shown by the large number of repeated grants we have been given. With the increased sophistication and professional analysis of grant-makers, this shows we are satisfactory.

In the last few years, progress has been steady. It may just be that the young people we have presently are keen to move forward with training and education, to work and get out of the descending spiral of homelessness; it is not pleasant on the streets, despite the numbers still there, often begging.

Those we have had during the last few years have been quiet and more disciplined - several don't even smoke or drink - and we have not had one complaint from neighbours or The Peabody Trust. The residents are generally more interested in moving forward than in repeating their histories of violence and abuse, their lack of confidence, qualifications or skills.

This may be because we deliberately have few rules. Many young homeless people have been in 'Care' and others have been given numerous directions and rules they are required to obey. They don't like them. They don't obey them. We make few rules: no drugs, no loud noise, no violence.

The residents quickly become pleased to have their own rooms, sharing a large flat with one or two others with whom they learn to get on. Each one moves on, no matter how small that move might seem to be.

And none of them reverts to being homeless.

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