Vote For Housing For Women This May and Help Support Vulnerable Women & Children
Registered charity and independent housing association Housing For Women provide housing and services for women in London. For over 85 years they have been supporting women. Ultimately, their aim is to build a more equal society for women.
The organisation's roots go back to the suffragette movement, and today Housing For Women carry on in the footsteps of the early women's rights campaigners, working with some of the most marginalised groups in the UK, including trafficked women, women leaving prison, and older women at risk of loneliness and isolation. Improving the lives of women and children and challenging inequality is at the core of everything they do.
What Services Do Housing For Women Provide?
Housing For Women provides affordable, quality homes for women and their families in London, as well as a range of support services.
Housing
Women's additional caring responsibilities, lower average income and experience of sexual violence and domestic abuse can significantly affect their ability in finding and keeping suitable housing. The charity owns and manages over 920 homes across 11 boroughs in London, a vast majority of them being general needs housing, which provide social rent homes to women and their families.
Domestic Abuse Services
The charity also provides a range of specialist services to support women and children escaping abuse. They provide practical and emotional support, such as refuges, a confidential advice line and a floating support service. They tailor support plans to meet each individual's needs, empowering women to overcome trauma and rebuild their lives.
RePlace
Housing For Women's RePlace project is there to support surivors of modern slavery and human trafficking. The charity's support workers can provide tailored support plans with services including financial assistance such as food vouchers and assistance with benefits and grants, health and emotional support, and advice on legal issues.
ReUnite
The ReUnite project is the first of its kind in the UK and supports mothers leaving prison, addressing the difficult situation of being made homeless while in prison, subsequently struggling to regain custody of their children when they're released due to not having adequate housing. ReUnite provides women exiting prison with supported accommodation along with therapeutic services, and their dedicated team of children and young people's support workers helps children to overcome trauma and re-establish bonds with their mothers.
ReConnect
The charity's ReConnect project provides supported accommodation for female prison leavers who have complex needs and may be dealing with substance misuse. The service provides housing, as well as holistic support in order to help women create positive changes in their lives, improve their emotional wellbeing, reduce substance misuse and to prevent re-offending in the future. Additionally, staff are available on-site to support residents in accessing community mental health and local substance misuse services.
Support For Older Women
With around a quarter of the charity's general needs residents being over 60, Housing For Women deliver community based support to meet the needs of older residents, including a telephone befriending service, help with applications for sheltered housing, accessing new technology and arranging for provision of aids and adaptations to the home. Additionally, they work to combat social isolation through organising activities and gatherings for residents.
How You Can Help
Housing For Women's services are in more demand than ever. The charity works tirelessly to support hundreds of vulnerable women and children, and this isn't possible without the generosity of supporters. This May, we are delighted to be supporting Housing For Women in our charity poll. You can help them to win 20% of this month's profits by casting your vote for them today.
If you want to find out more about the charity, or make a donation, visit their website: https://hfw.org.uk/.