Sept 2015
Thank you for taking the time to complete the London Councils Consultation in support of our services.
In the last year London councils funding has provided a range of services to LGBT people living in unsafe accommodation. With dodgy landlords, living with abuser or simply living in a world that doesn’t make sense. Poverty had been an increasing issue for LGBT people living in London.
The following responses have been co-written by Stonewall Housing and Galop (with the support of our London Councils partners ( Albert Kennedy Trust, PACE; Broken Rainbow and LGBT Switchboard )
Theclosing date for the consultation is next Friday 02.10.15.The link for the consultation is
You will need to register to complete and an up-front warning it will take at least 30 mins to register and complete. But tour support will help secure future funding for LGBT people who have been through a dreadful experience.
We have created a short survey as another way to feed into the consultation, here is the link for that. This should take 5 – 10 mins, but we need response to this by Wednesday 30.10.15 in order to collate response.
Q1. The grants programme is described in [Annex E]. Should this programme continue after March 2017?
Yes
Q2. The grants programme principles are described in [Annex E]. Please give any comments on these?
The support that vulnerable LGBT victims have received through London Councils funding is vital. For example Galop leads the only coordinated community response to domestic abuse forLGBT people; (the ‘DAP Partnership’) in London. The DAP brings together 5 specialist LGBT organisations with service users at the heart of service development to ensure rapid response to emerging needs. The service acknowledged internationally as being models of best practice. To end this groundbreaking project would have an enormous impact on our clients and London’s sizable LGBT communities, many of whom are in desperate situation and would simply have nowhere else to go for help.
Evidence of need:
London Councils has achieved a great deal through the current Grants Programme by funding services. This has progressed partnerships between organisations to ensure vital, unique work is delivered, especially to meet the needs of protected characteristic groups, and has been adaptable to responding to emerging needs. For example, within the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) communities more people have experienced financial hardship and Stonewall Housing and partners have been able to draw in other funds to meet these needs thanks to the London Councils Grants Programme. Also, London Youth Gateway (LYG) partners have been able to raise awareness of emerging needs, for example those who have been impacted by welfare reforms, such as sanctions.
Lack of monitoring and analysis of data for some protected characteristics, such as sexual orientation or gender identity,among some boroughs and providers means that LGBT people may not be considered as a local priority. London Councils Grants Programme has ensured that the needs of LGBT communities can be gathered at a pan-London level and at a borough level and the funded services can respond accordingly. The information gathered by London Councils can also be analysed further to show whether particular groups within protected characteristic groups require specific attention.75% of Stonewall Housing’s advice clients are from BAME communities and the number of transgender clients has grown year on year. This is an issues which is currently effecting younger people to a greater degree with 8% of people aged over 25 years of age identify as trans* compared with 14% of people aged under 25 years of age identifying as trans*
More old people are also approaching our services, we have secured funding to carry out a feasibility study to launch older LGBT housing, and have been supported by other partners to start services for transgender homeless people.
Mobility for safety:
It is part of the pattern for survivors of domestic abuse that they may have to flee their home and move to another borough. It is accepted that survivors of domestic abuse are at the greatest risk at the time that they leave an abusive situation.
By providing pan-London services, domestic abuse organisations including Galop are able to ensure that survivors in this situation receive continuity of care and appropriate risk management at this most vulnerable time. Where different organisations provide services in different boroughs, this risks survivors who move outside of their borough falling through the cracks.
The relationship of trust which is built with a support worker enables clients to make the move knowing that there is a specialist and professional organisation who can provide ongoing support wherever they are in London.
It also means that there are specialist workers responsible for ensuring MARAC referral are made where appropriate. It is the worst possible time for a survivor to have to find new support from organisations when they move, simply because the organisation that has been supporting them no longer operates in their borough.
Pan-London:
Galop provides services to lesbian, gay, bisexual and trans people whose needs are not being met by mainstream organisations. LGBT people face particular problems related to their sexual orientation and gender identity, including hate crime and domestic abuse. LGBT communities are not restricted to one locality, but live throughout London. However a lack of statistics and robust evidence on a local level mean that issues for our community can often be overlooked or not prioritised.
This is compounded by the fact that the size of the LGBT community in individual boroughs may not be big enough to justify the expense of an LGBT focused service which is also specialist (for example tackling hate crime, domestic abuse, homelessness or mental health, rather than just a generic support organisation).
However by not providing this service, the borough fails to meet the real and specific needs of this group of residents. It istherefore more effective to provide these services on a pan-London basis, which creates a critical mass of need to justify a service which then benefits individual residents in all boroughs.
These pan-London LGBT services, such as Stonewall Housing, allow residents to access a service in which they are confident. Many LGBT people express a preference to access LGBT focused services This can be because they worry about having to out themselves to generic services, or may have had bad experiences in the past. These clients’ issues are often inextricably linked to the sexual orientation and/or their gender identity, and solutions may also be limited because of their sexual orientation or gender identity.
Partnerships and compliance:
The funding that the DAP partnership receives from the London Councils Grants Programme is essential for delivery of a joined-up, coordinated service, enabling vulnerable LGBT victims of domestic violence to quickly and easily access specialised support and advocacy around safety, criminal justice, housing and counselling. This close working also prevents duplication of work, enabling partners to best allocate resources efficiently. The success and effectiveness of our partnership working is reflected in The Domestic Abuse Partnership client feedback and consistently Green RAG ratings, scoring in the top 90 percentile.
Galop has an excellent track record as a lead partner on a variety of projects, most recently receiving the Campaign of the Year award on a project involving 35 hate crime organizations. Partner organisations value working with Galop, for example, we were namesPartner of the Year by the Albert Kennedy Trust, and were also recently nominated by Naz for the same award. Stonewall Housing's advice services have been awarded the Advice Quality Standard and they have developed these services to incorporate floating support as well as partnerships with other providers. London Youth Gateway was nominated for an Andy Ludlow Award which recognised the unique partnership that it created. Stonewall Housing was also a key voluntary sector stakeholder in the North West London Integrated Pioneer.
Equality
The partnership actively seek to engage with hard to reach communities across all equality strands and indications of our success in this area include:
Disability:27% of DAP clients have a disability, mental health is particularly high and research, including the safer lives research above, found that LGBT DV victims were more likely to have complex needs around mental health and substance misuse.
Faith: Our work to tackle forced marriage, ‘honour’ based violence, ‘corrective rape’ and ‘conversation therapy’ has been acknowledge for our successful interventions on behalf of clients at risk of these issues; for example by the Forced Marriage Unit.
Sexual orientation: LGBT specific services are key, as has been demonstrated by the continued high demand for the LGBT Domestic Abuse Partnership. Research by Safer Lives (2014)showed that few LGBT victims accessed help from mainstream DV services, with only 1.3% of survivors accessing other Domestic Abuse services identified as LGB and none as T
Gender identity: For trans women experiencing domestic abuse there are significant barriers to accessing mainstream service. Research has found this community at risk of domestic abuse in terms of prevalence and risk. The track record of specialist services such as Galop in serving this group is evidenced by the positive outcomes and high levels of service user satidfaction.
Sex: Specialist LGBT domestic abuse services provide a vital resource for womens organisation tackling violence and abuse, providing key learning opportunities on serving the needs of Lesbian, Bisexual and Trans* women. There is little or no service provision for Gay, Bisexual and Trans* male survivors of domestic abuse outside of the ‘DAP’ service despite evidence of high levels of need
Age: The DAP includes specialist preventative work with young people to foster health relationships among young people and innovative work to serve the needs of LGBT youth experience domestic abuse from family and partners.
Race: Around 50% of DAP cases were non-white British and reflect London’s diverse LGBT population. Galop has developed strong working relationships with voluntary and community organisations serving London’s LGBT BAME communities. Evidenced by for example recently being nominated for the NAZ Project’s award for partner of the year.
Our unique services deliver added value accross London in a variety of ways including:
- Our support to local authorities, criminal justice agencies and mainstream services partners by the provision of specialist training on equality issues.
- The partners provide specialist knowledge and regularly feed into consultations that benefit vulnerable LGBT Londoners including: Local borough Joint Strategic Needs Assessments, Health and Wellbeing Boards, CPS and MOPAC consultations and most recently the Womens and Equalities select committee enquiry on Trans Equality.
Q3a How important is it to fund pan-London services relating to homelessness through this grants scheme beyond March 2017? Please consider this in relation to need across London, current provision and services that boroughs already provide.?
Very Important
Q3b If you think that it is very important, important or quite important and given that there is existing provision, should the funding continue to focus on the following?
Early intervention and prevention: Yes
More LGBT people have approached Stonewall Housing advice services than ever before and they come from every London borough. Last year 80% of people who called Stonewall Housing for advice were out of work and there was an increase of 63% in the number of people calling for advice about debt and not being able to afford their accommodation. This number is expected to rise further as various welfare reforms are introduced. To meet this need the organisation has secured extra funding to be able to issue over £1,500 worth of hardship grants in the past year and we are now referral agents for Terrence Higgins Trust and Buttle's Anchor Fund for young people living with HIV as well as foodbanks from across the city.
Nearly 2/3 of people who contact Stonewall Housing for advice state that their housing problem is directly related to their sexual orientation or gender identity and many LGBT people do not approach mainstream advice services for fear that they may face homophobia, biphobia or transphobia or that the workers may not understand their full situation.Without Stonewall Housing’s advice they may not have access to safe accommodation and their physical and mental health would deteriorate as they remained homeless or in substandard accommodation with constant fear of abuse or violence.
If London Councils fails to continue to fund organisations that work with specific groups then this will reduce Stonewall Housing’s capacity to continue to offer the range of extra benefits that it offers to every local authority and their LGBT residents:
- developing innovative new services, such as the LGBT Domestic Abuse Forum, funded through the Oak Foundation, which gives a range of providers opportunities to share best practice in meeting the diverse needs of LGBT people which is now also based on additional advocacy and support offered to those experiencing domestic abuse.
- attracting other funding from local authorities for specific local projects to engage better with LGBT communities by implementing local financial management workshops, filming LGBT communities’ views about living and socialising in a particular borough and encouraging LGBT people to register to vote during the election.
- speaking up for the concerns of LGBT people about their housing issues on local forums, the Mayor of London’s Housing Forum, the national Equality Board of the Homes and Communities Agency and through the London Voluntary Service Council and London Voluntary Sector Forum, which Bob Green chairs.
-supporting innovative research, such as Finding Safe Spaces, which was funded through the Homelessness Transition Fund, to compare services for LGBT rough sleepers in London, Brighton and Manchester. It found that LGBT rough sleepers were not being served by mainstream rough sleeping services.
-working in partnership with a range of private, public and third sector agencies to improve services to LGBT people and help organisations meet their duties under the Equality Act, Care Act and Social Value Act: through the provision of training, consultancy and resources, such as the Chartered Institute of Housing’s Good Practice Guide for providing services to LGBT people.
-Working in partnership with other charities to develop new schemes such as a new initiative developing new housing services and a stronger network of services for LGBT people across the city with local authorities and St Mungo's and other providers.
Youth homelessness Yes
London Councils grants programme support the London Youth Gate (LYG) with is a partnership between the New Horizons Youth Centre, Alone in London, De Paul Trust and Stonewall housing. This consortium has the sole London Councils commission. Stonewall Housing’s role within this relationship is to not only provide direct service (information, advice, advocacy and support) but to commission services from our existing partnership LGBT Jigsaw. This partnership was set up in 2008 to help LGBT young people who were homeless or having trouble at home. By working with other LGBT specific agencies such as PACE of mental health support, Galop of community safety and domestic abuse, the Albert Kennedy Trust for emergency accommodation and information and advice. Thanks to the London Councils funding LGBT young people in London has specific safety net. An inclusive safe space where they can be who they are. Stonewall Housing is proud that we are able to continue to deliver these service in partnership with the LYG thanks to funding from London Councils.
It is vital we protect these services as homelessness amongst young people is increasing. According to Homeless Link’s Young & Homeless 2014 report, 52% of people seeking homelessness support are 25 years or younger. Recent years have also seen increased levels of rough sleeping by young people while, more generally, there is a well reported and increasingly dire lack of affordable, suitable accommodation for this demographic.
Pending welfare changes, including the removal of automatic housing benefit entitlement for 18-21 year olds. from April 2017, are likely to worsen the situation.
Importantly, and unlike local authority housing services, voluntary sector agencies are ideally placed to offer the kind of holistic service need to prevent and address youth homelessness. In addition to the preventative measures already mentioned, the LYG, for instance, provides:
- support in addressing underlying problems such as mental health and emotional and/or behavioural issues
- Advocacy, which is becoming increasingly relevant due to the Care Act.
- low threshold primary health care and counselling
- benefit advice, debt support and financial literacy development
- intensive and ongoing employment, education and training support, including ongoing help when young people transition into employment and/or accommodation
- in-house accredited training, including numeracy, literacy,
Moreover, and especially by working in consortium, it is possible to maintain and develop the specialist understanding and activities that will maximise the impact for specific groups, such as homeless LGBT young people, young migrants, gang-affiliated young people throughout London.