Olwyn Supports Solace's Housing First Project
Solace Women’s Aid provides services that are delivered by a highly experienced team of women, informed by the organisation’s founding feminist principles that meet the needs of the most marginalised women in our society who have experienced domestic abuse. Olwyn are pleased to be supporting Solace’s Housing First Project which is based in Westminster and Islington in London and provides support for 30 women a year who are long-term street homeless experiencing multiple disadvantages.
The Housing First project offers stable housing without any precondition as a solid platform from which individuals experiencing multiple disadvantages can begin their recovery. This means that women who are marginalised from other services do not need to meet fixed criteria, but the service works with them to support them the way they need. The Housing First project provides intensive, wrap-around support, with each advocate working with a small case load of five women, women who had previously not engaged with support, who had experienced domestic abuse, substance misuses, other health issues as well as long-term homelessness.
Due to a lack of funds, when a woman is identified by the project and begins to engage, support workers often struggle to meet her basic needs. Then, when a property is chosen there are no funds to move a woman into the property and get the essential products she needs to start her new life. Often the women are left on the streets for 2 to 3 months as funds are sought to ensure that the woman can start her new life in the best way. Solace says: “entrenched rough sleepers often won’t move into a flat that is not set up, and they do not have anything to move in with. Many clients have said it is no better than living on the streets. Funding for furniture, internet and other life essentials are vital for these women to believe that they can overcome their disadvantages and find safety off the streets.”
The Finding Safety Fund supported by Olwyn enables Solace to meet the needs of every woman they reach out to support so that they can work to engage with the women when they are street homeless and move them immediately into a property when it becomes available, so they can find safety.
“Everything has changed now. Before it was just day to day, minute by minute but now I can kind of look forward for the first time.” – Client Housing First