Though Cowards Flinch

The Scrine Foundation in Canterbury is a charity that works very closely with the homeless, providing beds and care, along with a dedicated staff that try to help the homeless access the services they are entitled to, as well as to reintegrate with society. I have just today learned that the Scrine Foundation is threatened with closure by our Tory council. The council has been investigating this charity for two years now with a view to cutting the amount of money it is spending on housing the homeless.

Using a reinterpretation of charity law, the Tory city council wishes to cut the amount paid per housed person from an average of £177 to a flat rate of £65.77. Chairman of the Scrine Foundation board of Trustees, James Walker, said that the situation would be made “catastrophic” by cutting the amount paid per person. “The revenue from our clients’ housing benefit is our main income stream. We don’t have any other liquid assets.”

Effectively what the council are attempting to force the Scrine foundation to do is to sack a large number of their full-time and part-time staff (of which there are about 70 total). This will mean heavy losses in all of the following departments: The Resettlement Team, which helps to re-house clients; Jobs, Education & Training Team, which helps to get clients back into education, voluntary work or paid work; and the Drug, Alcohol & Mental Health Team which helps clients to access services such as detox, rehab and counselling.

I’m so sick and tired of the Conservatives. I highlighted in a previous article how, instead of raising the question of the many Canterbury homeless in parliament with his last Private Member’s Bill, our Tory MP, Julian Brazier, decided to harp on about censorship. Now the Conservative council is actively trying to reduce the services available to the homeless in this city. Lest anyone be in any doubt, there are enough homeless people on the streets even without this latest attempt at penny pinching.

Anecdotally, I have heard that the council has long had this in mind, since there is a narrow-minded view that accumulations of the homeless nearby one of the local railway stations (where there is a 20-bed “free house”) gives the town an ill appearance to visitors. I haven’t spoke to the local Labour councillors yet, so I really have no idea how true that is. What I do know is that there are no plans on the part of the council to pick up the slack if the Scrine foundation closes.

Head of revenue and benefits at Canterbury City Council, Andrew Stevens, said;

“We have a legal duty to ensure that housing benefit is being paid correctly based on the circumstances of each case.

“The very substantial rise in the rents charged, along with relevant and emerging case law similar to the Scrine properties meant we had to carefully consider the circumstances of housing benefit claims at these properties.”

The Scrine Foundation has been surviving for charging on a per housed person basis but then using the resultant funds to provide a service which stretches much further than just a bed per night, which is all that would be assured if the proposed £65.77 was paid directly to private landlords. This is a loophole which has meant that the Scrine can provide service that the council is unwilling to, or unable to, to a much broader group of people than those who can be bedded down every night.

That this is necessary is patently obvious to anyone who walks the streets of Canterbury after six o clock in the evening. Even with Scrine housing, there are still people sleeping rough and winter is coming on fast even here in the sunny Southeast. More money is needed on the part of the Scrine to expand capacity and to continue offering the services that enable many of the former homeless to get back on their feet and into a productive job and a home.

I’ll allow one of the former Scrine beneficiaries, Maurizio Riscitti, to speak for himself:

“I am an ex homeless myself and I cannot believe that the council have make this terrible decision.

I am now working in this enviroment and I know the massive need and support that homeless people need.

The Scrine foundation is a wonderful organisation that needs to grow and develop with more service and support from local and central government and not get this sort of problems.”

If there are any local Canterbury residents reading this, expect to hear something from the local Labour Party on the fight to keep the Scrine open and firing on all cylinders. Also, for anyone with a free Saturday morning, there will be a protest on the 20th of September. It will begin outside Canterbury Cathedral at 10am, and all participants are asked to bring a box, to demonstrate the effect that 150 extra homeless people will have on the city.