Today The Refugee Council won a London Homelessness Award, awards which celebrate organisations doing vital work to tackle homelessness in London.
Our dedicated team have been recognised for helping newly recognised refugees to find a home in the private rented sector, as well as supporting them to find training and work, so that they can settle in and start to rebuild their lives. We also support landlords throughout the process, so that we can create secure, long-term tenancies for refugees.
The awards are sponsored by London Housing Foundation, the London borough Housing Directors, and the charities Crisis and Shelter. Thanks to the award, the Refugee Council will receive £10,000 to further support some of Britain’s most vulnerable people.
Andrew Lawton, Refugee Council Integration and Employment Services Manager said: “The Refugee Council is over the moon to have received this award. To be even considered up against these other amazing homelessness projects is humbling.
“Sadly the UK government has created this situation where refugees with recognised protection needs are being made homeless everyday with many finding themselves sleeping on streets of London in highly vulnerable situations. Our private rented housing project is so desperately important in supporting newly recognised refugees out of homelessness and into somewhere they can hopefully in time call home. We are a very small London based project so unfortunately can only help a tiny proportion of those who need our support.
“However, we do hope that we will continue to grow and support more refugees and as such, we are hugely grateful to the amazing and generous support of a number of volunteers who help us each day to achieve that goal. We would like to thank you so much for this award and for recognising the work that we do.”
