Shapps pledges to move women's homelessness up agenda

Published by Jon Land for 24dash.com in Housing

Housing Minister Grant Shapps MP has promised to put women and homelessness on the agenda of his cross Ministerial Working Group on tackling homelessness.

The commitment came as he spoke at the Parliamentary launch of St Mungo's 2012 Action Week campaign Rebuilding Shattered Lives. The 18-month campaign aims to raise awareness about women and homelessness, share good practice and drive innovation and service improvements.

Mr Shapps highlighted that in 2008 he had been directly involved in a Homeless Foundation report around the issues women faced and praised St Mungo's for this "hugely important" campaign.

He also thanked St Mungo's client Lucy for her "inspiring" speech about her own personal experiences of becoming homeless and recovering with help and support.

Mr Shapps said: "Lucy's speech was a reminder that people can become homeless for many complicated reasons. The reason I set up the Ministerial Working Group was to tackle homelessness and its causes across different areas and the Ministerial Working Group will be putting women's homelessness on a future agenda."

Also speaking at the event were Baroness Corston, who led the highly influential Corston review of women with particular vulnerabilities in the criminal justice system, and Simon Hughes, Liberal Democrat Deputy Leader and MP for Bermondsey and Old Southwark, who hosted the event and who has visited a number of St Mungo's projects in his constituency.

Charles Fraser, Chief Executive of St Mungo's, said: "We very much welcome this commitment that the Ministerial Working Group will look specifically at the issues that women face as part of its cross working on tackling homelessness.

"The Rebuilding Shattered Lives campaign is all about concerted action, helping women unravel particular personal problems that cut across sectors working to enable them to get the help they need at the point they need it.

"We look forward to contributing our knowledge and experience to the Group and, through this campaign, energising policy and practice to drive lasting change."