Members of this church recently gave CARIS Haringey, one of our supported charities, a considerable number of toys to help them to give presents to homeless children aged up to 15 years at their Christmas parties. For this the charity is enormously grateful, as also for our annual monetary donation. The AGM has recently been held for the year 2009-2010, so this is an appropriate time to review its work.
The borough of Haringey partially adjoins our own borough of Camden, so is truly a neighbour. It is also the context in which CARIS Haringey works. It is the fifth most deprived borough in London and the 18th most deprived in England. Tottenham ward in the east of the borough had 7.8% of the working age population unemployed in February 2010, the highest figure for London. There is a high demand for housing and many residents cannot afford to buy a home. Many families are struggling well below the official poverty line and some are excluded from access to publicly funded support. The number of homeless households living in temporary accommodation is consistently the highest or second highest in the country – 3,547 households in March 2010. It is in that context that CARIS seeks to address the needs of homeless families and to provide families with support and advice. These families are both indigenous and more recently arrived, such as asylum seekers and those who have refugee status.
CARIS works in partnership with Haringey’s Homelessness Strategy 2008-2011 to improve the quality of temporary accommodation, safeguard children and vulnerable adults and improve customer service. In February 2010 it was audited by the Community Legal Services, Office of the Immigration Services Commissioner, and awarded Quality Mark Standard for casework in the following fields: Welfare and Benefits, Housing, Immigration and Nationality, Refugees and Asylum Seekers, Race Equality, and Women. Amongst its achievements in 2009-2010 were the following activities:
- Mobile Toy Library. 195 children benefited from this service, which is also a bridge for families to access other services.
- Summer Playscheme. This is staffed by trained play/youth workers and was attended by 162 children and their parents. It included workshops, drama and dance, day trips to Margate and Legoland and other activities.
- Drop-in Service. A stay and play session, attended by 345 parents and 438 children. Alongside it is a clothing exchange facility, offering good quality baby clothes and other essential items for families who cannot afford to purchase them. There were also two community nutrition programmes. (Much activity was going on when I took over the toys donated by this church.)
- Family Support. This provides outreach visits to people’s homes. 86 families living in temporary accommodation were assisted by CARIS’s family support worker and over 150 food parcels delivered to families who have no recourse to public funds – also baby clothes, push chairs, bedding etc.
- Advice Service. 407 homeless households received advice and advocacy from CARIS’s Advice and Outreach workers. Workshops were also held to increase parents’ knowledge of the benefits system and other rights and assist on access to services. Many of those assisted were referred by other statutory and voluntary organisations.
- English Classes in partnership with the College of North East London.
Development of the CARIS Starfish Project, to provide emergency or interim housing, about which I wrote in last February’s magazine, has been impeded by economic factors, including cuts and reduction of capital funding. CARIS continues to seek a viable property and secure sustainable income.
The acronym CARIS stands for Christian Action and Response In Society. This gives us pause to think where our Christian faith should lead us. CARIS’s annual report, three or four copies of which have been placed on the table at the back of the church, includes this challenge to us all in the introduction from the Chair and Director:
“For those fortunate people in this recession who still have food in the fridge and a home to put the fridge in, even though we may have personal reasons to feel vulnerable or deprived in our own lives, actively working for positive social change will necessarily involve each of us playing our part.
Change does not only start from the top. It also starts from the bottom, and we all need to get involved in whatever ways we can to respond to our society’s needs and to improve its sense of well-being. These are challenging times. If we rise to the challenge we will not only make a difference to our own lives, but also change the lives of others.”