St. Botolph's Project (Defunct)

Homelessness project shuts its doors Matt Weaver Thu 1 Apr 2004 07.38 EST Shares 0 The oldest homelessness charity in London's East End, St Botolph's project, has gone into insolvency. Most of the charity's 70 staff were given redundancy notices last Friday after a last minute bid to save the charity failed. The charity has become the latest agency to get squeezed out of the crowded homelessness sector. Yesterday SocietyGuardian.co.uk revealed that the award-winning homeless prevention charity Safe in the City was closing after running out of funds. St Botolph's project was founded in 1958 as a soup kitchen in the crypt of St Botoph's church in the City of London. It grew to an organisation with a turnover of £2.5m which helped around 3,000 people a year through a variety of services. Advertisement Those services, which included 89 bed spaces, and training and education for vulnerable groups, will be taken over by a number of larger agencies. Last week Thames Reach Bondway, a leading charity for rough sleepers, decided against a plan to rescue St Botolph's. Its chief executive, Jeremy Swain, said: "We would like to have taken it over but the funding stream was not strong enough." He added that Thames Reach Bondway could have agreed a deal if it was given more notice of St Botolph's difficulties. It was only approached for assistance last Wednesday. Mr Swain described the insolvency as a "a great tragedy" and added, "it was providing really valuable services". Rebecca Pritchard, director of services at the homelessness charity Centrepoint, was a trustee of both St Botolph's and Safe in the City. She refused to discuss the details of St Botolph's insolvency, and said all queries should be directed to the charity's chairman, the Rev Brian Lee. He was unavailable for comment. But commenting in general, Ms Pritchard said: "It's increasingly difficult to secure funding for groups that don't meet local priorities." St Botolph's demise comes after a debate in the sector about the large number of homelessness charities in the wake of a successful government programme to cut the number of people sleeping rough. There are estimated to be around 200 homelessness charities in London alone. Mr Swain said: "Over time we will see fewer larger agencies that can make efficiency savings. But if the sector comes down to a dozen big organisations it will lose its main attribute of diversity and the variety of responses for service users." He added: "There are too many organisations doing the same thing."