WIREDGOV

Future Ready fund offers grants of up to £25,000 to charities.

Recently, the Homelessness Transition Fund launched a new fund to help homelessness charities respond to pressures caused by rising demand at a time of cuts to funding.

Under Future Ready, voluntary sector organisations that work with homeless people can apply for grants from £5,000 - £25,000 to help them respond to the challenges they face.

With homelessness numbers at their highest since 2008 and six out of every ten projects having had their budgets cut in 2011, Future Ready aims to help organisations prepare for further changes to the commissioning and funding of services.

Organisations can apply for grants to help them:

• Adopt new ways of working or build their skills base
• Form new partnerships with other organisations
• Test new approaches that will attract funding
• Make difficult decisions about their future
• Improve business planning or collect evidence to show the importance of their work

Eight organisations have already successfully applied to Future Ready, including:

•  Over £5,000 for Cornerstone Supported Housing and Counselling Ltd to develop their 'Market Stall' project, which enables clients to sell the produce they make direct to the public.

• Over £20,000 for Petrus People to help them develop their social enterprise arm, including a high-quality furniture refurbishment business.

• £25,000 for the Outpost Housing Project to help them increase the amount they generate from fundraising. 

• Over £19,000 for SHP Redbridge Outreach to help them develop a new service for former rough sleepers with complex problems to prevent them from returning to the streets.

The independent Homelessness Transition Fund was set up in 2011 to help support the Government’s rough sleeping strategy ‘Vision to end rough sleeping: No Second Night Out nationwide’.

Administered by Homeless Link, the umbrella body for homelessness charities, and supported by the Department for Communities and Local Government, the Fund has distributed £11.6m since it first launched in 2011.

To apply for the Future Ready fund, visit: www.homeless.org.uk/fund.