“I joined Thames Reach through the Traineeship in 2011. Having worked in organisations before which were more focused on policy and lobbying government, I was keen to get some experience of front-line support work. I was attracted to Thames Reach as a very practical organisation and hoped the Traineeship would give me a way in to the sector. I started in Stamford Street, as it was then known, and then moved to another hostel, Graham House, for my second placement. I found the Traineeship to be a really positive experience, a good mix of being thrown in at the deep end and getting support and guidance from the people I worked with. I learnt from my mistakes and saw the creative and consistent work done by our organisation first hand, often shadowing more experienced colleagues. I was able to stay on after my Traineeship ended, getting a job in the Graham House team, and have worked in a few of our different projects over the years, leading to my current job as the area manager for hostels. I think the Traineeship is a great opportunity for anyone looking to start their career in the sector, and I look forward to seeing who applies for this year’s scheme as a member of the interview panel.”

Can you tell us about how the Employment and Skills team are helping people Thames Reach are already working with?
We are always looking to increase the numbers of people we work with, and offer a range of support such as basic skills training, which includes digital literacy, traditional literacy and English to Speakers of Other Languages (ESOL). We have a job broker in our teams who can set people up with employment; we have strong relationships with many employers, especially in construction, hospitality, retail, and security sectors. We acknowledge that not everyone will be ready to go straight into a new job, and many people will have gaps in their CVs where life experiences have taken place, so we can also help people become job-ready, with CV support and interview preparation.

Once people are at that stage and in employment, we are also committed to helping people get better paid work, particularly meeting the London Living Wage. We often organise employer engagement events, where we invite employers in to meet potential candidates, so we can demystify the interview and recruitment process as much as possible. They are always popular and have been very successful. For those who may not be ready for work yet, we provide volunteering opportunities to help people gain confidence, experience and get into a good routine.

Why is it so important to work collaboratively with other Thames Reach teams?
Internal teams have good relationships with the people they work with, and know them really well; some of the work we do will be a brief intervention so that the individual can take that next step. It’s so important that the relationships of trust are maintained between the individual, their support worker and the Employment and Skills team. If we can understand the challenges and the barriers that are preventing people from moving forward, we can use the resources we have to help them in the most suitable way. We work with the TST (Tenancy Sustainment Team) a great deal, all outreach teams, and sometimes hostels. We also have a strong relationship with the EUSS (European Union Settlement Scheme) team, and a good track record of signposting people to the right service to complete successful immigration status applications. This is a vital part of the process of helping people avoid street homelessness.

Do you offer support to people with a range of needs?
When we have referrals from all different teams at Thames Reach, as well as the wider community, we work with a wide range of people; some may be currently sleeping rough and receiving support through outreach teams, while some people will be in secure housing. To maintain contact, we need to find out if they have access to a mobile phone. We work with an organisation called Community Calling to get people phones so that they can keep in contact with not only us and their support worker, but of course their wider support networks. We then need to know if they are available for work, when they last worked, and what kind of upskilling they might need. Even if people are staying temporarily in hostels, night shelters or hotels, without long-term fixed addresses, we can still help them into work. For some people without fixed addresses, they may have limited entitlement to benefits, so finding work quickly is important.

Our work lies in both preventing street homelessness and helping people recover from it. Getting people into work is not always straightforward and involves a lot of personalised support around improving confidence and self-esteem as well as skills. It is important that we facilitate up-skilling; sustainable work is one of the most important things in supporting people away from homelessness.

Today, we are officially launching our Thames Reach Annual Review 2020-21, highlighting the impact of the work our organisation has been doing between April 2020 and March 2021. The new document, with introductions by Chair of the Board Stephen Howard and Chief Executive Bill Tidnam, goes into detail on how our various services have ben helping homeless and vulnerable people across London, and features case studies and interviews and with staff members, volunteers, and with the people using our services.

As well as features highlighting the work done by services such as STAR and Brokerage and Resettlement in Lambeth, the review also goes into detail on how our staff have adapted to meet the needs of the people we help through the height of the coronavirus pandemic, as we continued to provide essential services to vulnerable people, such as outreach work and running hostels. The document also covers the work we undertook as part of the Government’s Everyone In scheme, where we helped accommodate people sleeping rough in unused hotels during lockdowns.

For all this and more, take a look at the Thames Reach Annual Review 2020-21.

Thames Reach’s Employment and Skills team have just launched their new project Bounce Back, a service led by our in-house job broker.

This two-year project will see Lambeth residents aged between 18-30 who are not currently in employment or training get advice and offers for employment. The team are accepting applications on a rolling basis, as the project will be running until 2023.

Applicants will also receive a grant of up to £500 to support costs including food and travel.

Bounce Back is kindly supported by the Walcott Foundation.

Please contact Thames Reach’s job broker, Telixia, at telixia.inico@thamesreach.org.uk with any questions, or to apply.

Thames Reach have set up and started running a new residential project in partnership with Hackney council in order to prevent homelessness in the borough.

The building is managed by Thames Reach and helps residents access the help they need to prevent homelessness and move on with their lives.  This help may be around skills and employment, immigration or getting access to health services. Residents have low support needs, and the scheme is a stepping stone, aiming to accommodate people for around nine months before they move on to independent housing. Residents are referred by Hackney council and the Greenhouse, a day centre that we run in partnership with Hackney council to house people with connections to Hackney.

The detached property had been lying vacant for some time, and has been fitted out to accommodate twelve residents under 35, including two spaces which can be accessed by people who have no recourse to public funds while they resolve their immigration status. In the current group of residents, 60% are in employment, reflecting the reality of homelessness today. Thames Reach’s Employment and Skills team are able to help residents find work where needed, and  also to look for better and more secure employment.

Mathiu, aged 27, is a resident at the Clapton Common project. After a short period of sofa-surfing, he is being accommodated at the project and is looking forward to not only getting his own flat so he can have his children stay, but re-training as a personal trainer. His story is available to read here via the Thames Reach website.

Cllr Sade Etti said: “The Council’s vision is to prevent all forms of homelessnes in the borough. We have committed to providing flexible housing support for people with short- and long-term needs, which enables them to keep safe, to live independently and to maintain good health and wellbeing so that they can access and be a valued part of their local community.

“The majority of people we support who find themselves homeless are from Hackney and are therefore already part of Hackney’s community. Using the building in Clapton means they can access support in a familiar area whilst building skills and resilience, to enable them to move on into settled accommodation.”

Bill Tidnam, Thames Reach chief executive, said: “At Thames Reach, we are proud of our work in collaboration with Hackney council for this unique project. The pandemic has emphasised the need to provide a range of accommodation and support to people experiencing homelessness, and for this to be based on the individual’s needs. Where we can, we work with partners to provide accommodation that can divert people away from the risk or reality of street homelessness and quickly towards work and independence.  This scheme is an example of this preventative approach, and we are pleased to be able to work with the borough to provide housing management and employment support to the people, like Mathiu, who live in the Clapton Common project.”

Resident Mathiu’s story can be read on our website here.

Mathiu has been staying at the Clapton Common residential property for two months, and is already working with Corinna, the housing manager of Thames Reach’s Peer Landlord Scheme, to get his new flat and secure a successful move-on process. Mathiu had become homeless after a bad relationship breakdown which made him homeless. He then stayed with a friend for a year and a half, but she got into a new relationship, and her boyfriend wasn’t happy with Mathiu staying at the flat, so he had to move on.

Mathiu got in touch with Hackney council, who at the time could not help due to Mathiu’s status as having no recourse to public funds. He only had 30 days left to renew his immigration papers, which Hackney supported him with; they helped him make the new application and he was soon eligible for support. In April this year, the council temporarily accommodated him in a hotel for a week before he spent some time in a shelter in north London. Arrivals to the Clapton Common project are made through referrals by Hackney council.

Mathiu says the differences between living in a shelter and living at the Clapton Common residence are huge, including freedom of having your own space and to cook your own meals. At the shelter, he says, there were up to twelve people sharing one room. “I’ve had help here with employment and getting qualifications. I want to work in the rail industry, so Thames Reach have been really helpful in getting me towards that, such as enrolling me on the PTS course, which is the licence you need to work on the rail.”

“Corinna has also helped me apply for my housing benefit, which I didn’t know how to do. Without her, I don’t think I would have been able to do it myself.” Mathiu has two children so finding the most suitable accommodation has been important in helping resolve his homelessness. He has been getting the support he needs in finding his new home, while living at Clapton Common. He usually has his kids at weekends, and is looking forward to being able to have them round again.

He has been referred to services with migrant and refugee organisation Praxis to help with his immigration status. After being asked to leave his friend’s flat, he was sleeping in his car for over a month, during which time he lost his second job so wasn’t able to pay to renew his papers. Praxis are now in the process of helping him with his immigration status.

“Living here has really motivated me to be myself and to be better. Like I had never thought of being a personal trainer until I got my own space, and now I have people that I train on a weekly basis. Now I’m looking at getting my personal training licence as well as my rail qualification.”

Health inequalities are one of the main concerns for Thames Reach in our work to end street homelessness. We spoke with Yves, who manages our Robertson Street hostel in south London, on the work they are doing to ensure more people are getting access to the support they need.

Hi Yves, can you introduce us to your service?

Robertson Street is located in Lambeth, south London, and is what you would call a ‘first stage’ hostel, meaning we can get referrals from a range of sources through Lambeth’s Vulnerable Adults Pathway. We have a capacity for 42 residents and ideally each resident’s length of stay is between six months and two years.

What kind of support do residents have access to during that time?

We are an accommodation-based service to  people over 40, so provide access and signposting to support. We want to help residents to be able to move on to independent or semi-independent living following a stay here. We’re part of the Lambeth Vulnerable Adults Pathway, and accommodate residents with a range of different and complex needs. These support needs may have previously contributed to their homelessness or not being able to maintain tenancies or other forms of accommodation. Other hostels in the borough work with different age groups, which is why we specialise in over 40s. We do have a couple of people under 40 but this is because their complex physical, or other, needs cannot be met in other services.

What is your approach to addressing healthcare inequalities at Robertson Street?  

We strive to counteract inequalities and promote inclusion. Inequalities take several forms when we are working with people who have experienced street homelessness, as we must support people to bridge these inequalities, mostly in terms of healthcare. One of the things we do is work with the pathway manager and other external partnerships in order for people to move into needs-based accommodation. It is paramount that an individual can access the support they need. We have a nurse and GP clinic once a week at Robertson Street, as well as a prescribing clinic, and we have very good connections to community mental health services. We really make health a priority. Initial assessment work is carried out in-house when residents first move in, then we can signpost to physical, mental and other medical advice externally, meaning they can continue to get support in the community after they move on. We support residents to attend appointments, working with partnership agencies and Groundswell. This level of encouragement and support enables a smoother move-on into the community when the time is right.

What challenges has your hostel faced during the pandemic?

The main challenges were the move-on pathway becoming less mobile than usual. The repercussion for move-on being unavailable was that we couldn’t move people into the hostel either, so incoming and outgoing options were very limited. Community services that we always promote were facing closures and limited availability, such as day centres, mental health support, drug and alcohol services and other community-based resources, so we had to try our best to keep up momentum and motivation for move-on. While moving services online to Zoom is a good way of keeping people safe, many residents have found this difficult to engage with. We have been keeping residents motivated that their move-on will be happening eventually and kept preparation going. As a team we’ve accomplished this really well, and have been able to keep morale up. Aside from our normal work we had to implement extra cleaning on-site, but it made a big difference; we reduced risk of infection by sanitising the building twice every shift and educating residents about social distancing, risk management and maintaining safe practices.

What positive outcomes have emerged from overcoming these challenges?

We have a great team with good adaptability who can deal with and are supportive of a range of needs. There is a good balance between experienced members of staff and enthusiasm of people who have recently come to work in the sector. I’m proud that we’ve been able to provide a consistent and continual service throughout the pandemic, which reflects the project and Thames Reach as an organisation; we haven’t had to defer anything. Anything that wasn’t available in the community we brought in; our next step is now integrating residents and services back into the community.

On 12 August, in partnership with Lewisham council, Deptford Reach hosted a health and wellbeing day for members of the community and users of Thames Reach services. The invite was extended throughout the organisation as part of our ongoing commitment to bridging the inequality gap created by street homelessness.

While Deptford Reach is known to be a day centre hosting various activities for its visitors, since the pandemic the team have been extending their reach to ensure those in the wider community know about their resources and means of support. This has included outreach at Lewisham food banks.

The day involved drop-in services including COVID vaccinations, nurse appointments for general health checks, CGL (drug and alcohol support); Hep C, Hep B, HIV and syphilis testing with results given on the day; STI testing; advice and demonstrations for lateral flow testing, including handing out test kits on outreach; and information and advice on infection control.

It was a successful and positive event, ensuring people felt welcome and safe in Deptford Reach’s building, at the heart of the community. There will be more similar events in the future as part of the service’s focus on more outreach work. In the meantime the team facilitate regular GP and nurse appointments in the building, as well as supporting people to register with GPs in the community.

Sive O’Regan, inclusion health clinicial nurse specialist, said: “Really happy with today’s turn out for our point-of-care blood borne virus testing at Deptford Reach. A really well organised health promotion event that we thoroughly enjoyed being a part of and look forward to the next.”

Jordan McTigue, lead manager at Deptford Reach, said: “It can be difficult for people with experience of street homelessness, as well as those at risk of street homelessness, to access health services, so this is such an important day to get people engaged and get them vaccinated and protected against COVID-19, as well as providing resources and information to prevent ill health where possible.”

In the period since the start of the pandemic, reporting on numbers of people sleeping rough has been varied, often not taking into account the various ways individuals can be, or can find themselves, homeless. While the most recent CHAIN statistics signal that there has been another increase in people being made street homeless, Thames Reach chief executive Bill Tidnam explains that understanding the issues faced by people experiencing homelessness requires more than numbers.

“The 3% rise in numbers of people seen sleeping rough compares with a rise of 21% the previous year. We need to remember that this covers the first quarter of 2020/21, where a record number of people were experiencing street homelessness as a result of the economic impact of the first lockdown. These figures also tell us that there was an increase in numbers of people sleeping rough with no support needs and more younger people, which seems to represent this same group who would not ordinarily have slept rough.

“Fortunately we have seen a significant rise in funding for services working with people sleeping rough. The resulting increase in outreach activity has meant that more people have been seen and recorded by outreach workers, making the data more reliable.

“We do have significant concerns for the future though; the European Union Support Scheme, with its deadline at the end of June, means that the 20% of people seen rough sleeping who are from Central and Eastern Europe now have even more limited options. This also includes people who have been housed in temporary accommodation and hotels as a result of the pandemic, projects which now face closure.

“A lift in eviction bans has not resulted in an immediate increase in people sleeping rough, but the impact of this will take time to show, as will the end of increased Universal Credit payments in the autumn.

“The availability of short-term accommodation through the ‘Everyone In’ initiative has been welcome, but it does not remove the need for the sort of specialist, high-support-need settings that will help people come off the streets and rebuild their lives.  Our outreach teams desperately need access to emergency accommodation that is immediately available, where need can be quickly assessed and suitable options can be identified for the individual.

“There are many reasons why people become homeless, and the accommodation available when people are helped off the street must cater to their needs and provide the right environment to gain stability and establish long-term options. The street is not the best place to achieve this.”

Thames Reach will not normally withdraw a service from individuals because they do not have recourse to public funds. However, most of our residential services require residents to pay rent and service charge, the majority of which is normally paid through benefits, and non-payment of these charges will jeopardise the future of the service.  This means that we cannot routinely provide accommodation to people without recourse in most of our residential schemes.

In the case of vulnerable people, and those experiencing homelessness, who do not have recourse to public funds, we will seek to provide accurate advice, assistance and support, including advice and support around employment. We recognise that in many cases this support will include referral to a qualified specialist provider of immigration legal advice, as at Thames Reach we are not qualified to provide this advice internally.

Where users of residential services are responsible for rent and charges, they will need to be able to demonstrate how they will be able to pay before they move in. We will continue to advocate for a range of emergency provisions that will allow people who are sleeping rough, who do not have the means to pay for accommodation, access to short term shelter; this will allow more sufficient time to more effectively resolve their homelessness. During their time in this short-term accommodation, we can also provide support from different teams within Thames Reach and our partners, whether this is to resolve their immigration status, find employment, or voluntary reconnection to an appropriate country. This short-term accommodation could be specialist shelter accommodation, safe spaces in existing hostels, or other appropriate settings.  Access to this accommodation is limited and we will prioritise access on the basis of vulnerability in conjunction with commissioning authorities.

Where people who are living in Thames Reach-managed accommodation lose entitlement to support through public funds they will normally begin to accrue arrears.  When this occurs, managers are asked to look at each case on its own merits, looking particularly at the vulnerability and needs of the individual.  Options should include the use of local authority support, advice and support to access more appropriate accommodation, and referrals to specialist agencies and other charities, and welfare funding to support these courses of action.

Thames Reach are committed to providing support to non-UK nationals facing street homelessness in London. We will continue to publicly highlight particular challenges faced by vulnerable people and those experiencing homelessness, who do not have recourse to public funds.