Islington Homelessness Charter

The Islington Homelessness Partnership has grown from collaboration with people who have experienced homelessness, charities, community and faith organisations, the council, businesses and other interested partners.

Values

While homelessness remains, this charter provides guiding principles concerning the rights of people who are homeless or at risk of homelessness. We believe that everyone who is homeless should have a right to:

• A safe, secure home along with an appropriate level of support to create a good quality of life
• Safety from violence, abuse, theft and discrimination, and the full protection of the law
• Respect and a good standard of service everywhere
• Equality of access to information and services
• Equality of opportunity to employment, training, volunteering, leisure and creative activities

 We believe that those who work with homeless people have a collective responsibility to ensure that:

• Good communication, coordination and a consistent approach is delivered across all services
• Services collaborate, learn from each other and are willing to be flexible, keeping the person at the heart of any decision
• Services are accessible to people when they need them and are individually tailored, according to needs and preferences
• People with experience of homelessness have a voice and involvement in determining the solutions to their own issues, to homelessness, and in wider society
• We work in partnership to eliminate rough sleeping and end homelessness

Take action

Everyone has a role to play in improving outcomes for homeless people. We call on public sector colleagues, charities, faith and communities groups, businesses and individuals to share and adopt the vision and values of the Islington Homelessness Charter. You can demonstrate your commitment by doing the following:

• Encourage people at risk of homelessness to get early help by contacting the Advice Service by email or phone: 020 7527 6371
• Refer people to Streetlink if rough sleeping.
• Join a local mutual aid group
• Buy a copy of the Big Issue to help a registered vendor
• If you are able to, could consider volunteering or donating useful items or money to one of our partner organisations who support homeless and marginalised people

Our key partners

• St Mungos - provide our street based outreach service and some hostels in the borough
• The Manna - a day centre offering food, clothing and showers plus benefits advice and access to homeless outreach services
• Union Chapel - run the Margins Project, a day centre for those homeless and in crisis in London
• Streets Kitchen - local charity providing food and clothing to those on the streets
• CARIS Islington - a group of seven Islington churches that are committed to providing cold weather shelters in Islington during the freezing weather
• Single Homeless Project - provide supported accommodation and floating support to people with history of homelessness, substance misuse issues, mental health and offending
• Groundswell - offer homeless health peer advice and support to people to access health support
• Women at the Well - local charity for women, supporting women who are at risk of being affected by prostitution

Pledge your support

To make a pledge to share your skills or resources for the benefit of people who are homeless in Islington, please email us. You can make a personal pledge to support the charter, or join an action group working on key areas of improvement.

The Islington Homelessness Partnership welcomes Islington involvement from businesses. If you would like to speak to someone about how your business can get involved, please email us.

Join the Islington Homelessness Prevention and Rough Sleeping Forum

If you would like to join the forum to work in partnership on a priority issue to change how homelessness is tackled in the city, or find out more about the Charter, please email us.