Southampton
Summary
Southampton Churches’ Rent Deposit Scheme provides tenancy deposits for people who would otherwise be homeless. They work partly through providing cash and partly through ‘deposit bonds’, legal contracts where the charity promises to pay if needed. Generally, the deposits are released unscathed, meaning they can be used again to help another client. But, if they have to pay out, they don’t begrudge this, as they see it as part of working with those who are most in need.
Many of their clients are referred by other agencies, while some hear about the scheme from word of mouth. The deposits are offered for a period of six months, during which the residents can often save up their own deposit. If they haven’t quite made it, they’ve heard of clients whose landlords have let them stay on without a deposit because they’ve proved to be reliable tenants.
Because of a recent rapid increase in the number of clients they are helping, the churches involved in the scheme are now looking at different models of governance for this scheme, working with the council to find the best approach. City Life Church have now agreed to ‘pick up the baton’.
Background
One of the biggest blocks on entry to housing is the tenancy deposit. Paying a month’s rent up front is impossible for those living paycheck to paycheck. Because of this, people can needlessly end up on the street when they need to move house, and those who are already homeless can struggle to get back into a house.
In the 1990s, Avenue St Andrew’s URC found that many families around the church were in bed and breakfast accommodation. Many of them had to leave their flats at 9am and return at 5pm, so they often came to the church’s Avenue Centre, a family centre with a team of staff for referrals to health and social services. The church wanted to help provide stability, and – after considerable research to see if there was already a similar service – realised that for relatively little money they could help a lot of people escape homelessness. They saw this as simply taking their existing work one step further.
After seeding the scheme with internal fundraising, they approached other churches in the city in order to have a greater impact. This led to the creation of a trustee body from across the local denominations, although at this point the work was still run through the Avenue Centre’s structures. Eventually, a separate charity was created.
As time went on, demand increased, and deposit bonds – originally the only form of provision they were able to provide – were accepted by fewer and fewer landlords, so additional funding was needed. At this point, the council started funding part of their work through both their hardship fund and their homelessness team, allowing them to expand to provide cash deposits.
There are all sorts of reasons people use the scheme, but the most common is relationship breakdown, leading to people either sofa surfing or even sleeping on the street. The churches have a partnership with the council’s street homelessness team, who will often help someone fill out an application to the deposit scheme to help them access a house.
While some money is available to people straight from the council, this is not available, for example, to those who have recently moved to the city, and the churches are able to get the money to people much quicker, when these issues are often time-sensitive.
We’re ‘picking up people who fell through the housing net for one reason or another’ – Richard Harris, Chair of Trustees
Impact
Because of the council’s funding, their work has expanded rapidly. They have recently been able to fund 79 deposits a year, 14 of which were to people who were already sleeping rough.
The clients they help are often sofa surfing, sleeping in their cars or even sleeping rough
The churches’ reputation in the local area – especially with the council – has benefited considerably from this work
This work has provided links with other charities, which has helped with other areas of the churches’ mission, such as the URC’s recent work with asylum seekers
The church are proud of this work – ‘this is our bit of Christ in the community’.
An Iranian couple who came to the UK seeking asylum were granted refugee status, but they were given only one week to find somewhere before they had to leave their Home Office accommodation. They hadn’t been able to get work or benefits until their status was confirmed, so they had no money saved up. The churches provided a £500 deposit to help them get a flat.
What do you need?
Personnel
In recent years, they have generally had staff at 0.2FTE, who manage the direct support of clients. The staff have not always been Christian, but have supported the churches by, for example, attending services to talk about the work.
They emphasise that if a church hope to keep the work to a minimum, using respected HR professionals to manage employees would be helpful
There are trustees from across the churches in the city. They are all dedicated, and also have links to other charities in the city, helping to build partnerships and provide funding sources.
They warn that being a trustee is a significant responsibility, and that it can be time consuming
The work is also ‘owned’ by those in the congregation who are less directly involved
Finances
The cash deposits cost an average of £400 per beneficiary, which they generally get back
The other main outlay is on staff costs
They advise churches to seed fundraise internally before reaching out to others, as this really gets the project off the ground
The churches do considerable fundraising for the scheme: the URC have a big collection for it once a year; the Catholics do a big collection every Homelessness Sunday; the Methodists have run circuit fundraisers and the Quakers have been generous both locally and nationally.
They are now funded by the council – both through their Homelessness Department and Local Welfare Provision Fund. Without this funding, they would not be able to offer cash deposits.
They also get funding through various charitable funds in Southampton
Partnerships
They have good relationships with the city’s council, who understand the role of churches in the provision of homelessness services. Without this relationship, the scheme would lose a useful referral agency, along with the majority of their current funding stream.
Tips
They require the clients to find the accommodation themselves, avoiding any conflict if the client finds there are issues with the let. This model should be followed by other churches.
They advise others to ‘pray about it’ before embarking on this work, as well as doing wide research, to see firstly whether it’s possible and secondly whether it’s needed in your area.
