WIREDGOV

Blog posted by: Jaishree Mistry, Thursday, 05 November 2020.

A final 60 homelessness charities whose finances have been affected by the pandemic have been awarded grants from the second round of Homeless Link’s COVID-19 Homelessness Response Fund.

Overall, 103 grants have been allocated, with organisations sharing a total of almost £4.3 million of funding provided by The National Lottery Community Fund, the largest funder of community activity in the UK, and Comic Relief, which raises money to support people around the world living incredibly tough lives. This Fund is now closed.

The funding is providing emergency financial assistance to local homelessness organisations that risked closure, service cuts or redundancies due to increased operational costs and a loss of income caused by COVID-19. It is also supporting organisations that needed to expand or adapt their services to safely support people experiencing homelessness during the pandemic.

A wide range of organisations across England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland have benefited, guaranteeing and improving support for groups including people facing multiple disadvantage, women and survivors of domestic violence, homeless young people, individuals from BAME groups and people identifying as LGBT+ and other minority groups.

A full list of the grant recipients from each strand of the Fund can be found below.

Rick Henderson, Chief Executive of Homeless Link, comments:

“The pandemic has hit local homelessness charities hard in many ways and yet, as always, they have risen to the challenge and continued to provide much needed support to people experiencing homelessness.

“We are delighted to have been able to offer financial support to these crucial organisations, enabling them to continue to pursue their missions at this critical time, and our sincere thanks go to The National Lottery Community Fund and Comic Relief for making this possible.”

The first round of funding from the COVID-19 Homelessness Response Fund consisted of £6 million provided by The Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government, which was shared among 133 homelessness charities on 7 June.

Winter Transformation Fund

Homeless Link is now accepting applications for a new fund – The Winter Transformation Fund. Homelessness, faith, community and voluntary sector organisations who provide winter accommodation can apply for grants to ensure that they can provide single room COVID-19 secure accommodation this year. Find out more and apply here.

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