£75,000 grant secures future for homeless young Islanders

Friday 31 January 2014

The future of a shelter for homeless Islanders aged 16 to 25 has been secured with funding from the Lloyds Bank Foundation.

The grant will help the Shelter Trust employ a Project Manager for Strathmore, the semi-independent living accommodation in St Mark’s Road, which opened in July last year. The home has been full ever since it opened, and offers support and practical help to young people in need.

In the past six months the staff at Strathmore have worked with 25 young adults who found themselves homeless and who had real difficulties trying to find jobs and affordable housing. The service focuses on education, employment and training, achieving good health and wellbeing and each young person is assessed and given an action plan to meet their specific needs.

The Trust’s Director John Hodge said the support provided at Strathmore helps underpin their transition to a stable home and adult life.

Mr Hodge said: “Receiving this money solves an awful lot of our problems and stops us worrying about how we were going to carry on providing the service. The Foundation was instrumental in helping us to establish our independent living units at Midvale Road and to receive its support again is great comfort to us, and encouragement for the work we undertake for the vulnerable members of our community.”

The Shelter Trust receives approximately 60% of its annual funding from Health and Social Services as a registered provider of services for the community. It relies on donations, fundraising, bequests and service charges to meet the shortfall.

The Executive Director of the Lloyds Bank Foundation in the Channel Islands John Hutchins said: “We were extremely pleased to have been in a position to help this trust whose work is invaluable to many of the disadvantaged living within Jersey.”

About one in four of the Shelter Trust’s clients are under the age of 25 with the number of women accounting for around 20% of the Island's homeless.