The Money House, our specialist financial education programme for young people moving into social housing, has scooped first prize at the London Homelessness Awards 2021.
The unique project teaches care leavers and vulnerable young adults how to manage their tenancies and has seen a 64% drop in evictions for those users at risk of becoming homeless.
Since 2013 it has saved nearly 4,000 young adults from losing their first home.
The London Homelessness Awards are the country’s leading homelessness awards. They recognise and highlight innovative practice in the sector across the capital. The awards are sponsored by LHF, Crisis, Shelter, Mayor of London and the London Housing Directors – the Evening Standard acted as media partners.
Root causes
Our award was presented by the London Deputy Mayor of Housing Tom Copley who said: “The Mayor of London was determined to tackle the root causes of homelessness”. In the UK a third of care leavers lose their first home and 83% of evictions are caused by rent arrears.
The win comes with a prize of £30,000 which will be used to bring the project to more young people.
A huge thank you to our young people, referral partners at the London Boroughs of Newham and Haringey, the City of Westminster and the Royal Borough of Greenwich and funders the Berkeley and JP Morgan Chase Foundations and Pimco.
Ian Brady of London Housing Foundation and chair for this year’s awards said: “We are proud to be able to support MyBnk and the other five shortlisted projects. They show that the homelessness sector in London is full of innovative, creative projects doing their best for people experiencing or at risk of homelessness.”
Scratching the surface
Nick Smith-Patel, Head of Young Adult Education, MyBnk, said: “Everyone at MyBnk is thrilled to receive this award. This project has so much potential and we’re just scratching the surface. Every young Londoner moving into independent living needs this experience.
When it comes to homelessness, prevention is always cheaper than the cure and this award recognises the power of just-in-time intervention to stop a young person from becoming another bad statistic. We’ll be putting much of the award fund into meeting the needs of unaccompanied asylum seekers – a growing cohort, especially in Westminster.”
Fellow prize winners included Camden Health Improvement; Southwark Law Centre: Homeless Patients Legal Advocacy Service and St Mungo’s: Westminster Street Outreach Service.
To find out more or to refer a young person to the programme please contact themoneyhouse@mybnk.org.
