Elderly homeless get a cash lifeline from office workers

Published on Saturday 27 May 2006 11:56

OLDER people trapped in a life on the streets are being offered new hope in Edinburgh thanks to a mammoth fundraising effort by staff at Standard Life.

The finance workers raised 100,000 in a year to pay for two streetworkers to help services geared towards older people.

Workers at homeless project Streetwork suspect that many older people remain homeless because little is known about their situation and there are no services tailored to their needs.

The cash was raised at a series of events during the last year by workers at the financial giant after they appointed Streetwork as their charity of the year.

Streetwork will use the donation to establish a service especially for older people in an attempt to get them settled in suitable accommodation.

The money will be used to employ two workers to go out on the streets and assess how many older homeless people there are.

Streetwork will also interview those who are homeless to find out why they are on the streets and determine the kind of services that could help them.

Peter Anderson, a team manager at Streetwork, said: "We hope that by targeting services at older people, they will have less involvement with the police, a better experience with the public and less up take on hospital services. There is a colossal knock-on effect."

He added: "We'll be doing a combination of work and part of that will be to carry out outreach work and to engage with the client group."

In total, there are thought to be more than 2000 people living on the streets in Edinburgh and many services are targeted at people aged under 30.

Mr Anderson said that in many cases older people became homeless because they were "institutionalised" and had previously been in long term hospital care, in the armed forces or in prison.

Many also have mental health or alcohol problems and need a combination of services to keep them off the streets.

Councillor Bill Cunningham is used to receiving complaints about homeless people because many gather at Hunter Square, which is in his ward.

He welcomed the new Older Rough Sleepers Service and added: "I think we need to work together to find places for these people to go where they are not going to antagonise the people around them.

"Streetwork has done a lot to get projects off the ground and people off the streets and I think this sounds useful."

Standard Life donated the money for the initiative from its charity fund which was created in 1999 to celebrate 175 years of being in business.

Staff are responsible for nominating charities and organising events such as sponsored runs, charity auctions and raffles.

Standard Life's group operations director Marcia Campbell said: "We're really proud to be associated with the important work being done by Streetwork UK. It's great knowing that the money we've raised is making such a big difference to people's lives."