Following London Mayor Boris Johnson’s announcement of a £1.7m donation to Veterans Aid, the charity’s CEO Dr Hugh Milroy said, “We are delighted to receive this funding which couldn’t have come at a better time. The £7m refurbishment and upgrade of our flagship hostel, New Belvedere House, is the largest single investment of money, human resource and community engagement in our 83-year history and we are still £1m short of our target. “More than 800 lives have been transformed since the present hostel opened in 1973. It has been commended by the London Borough of Tower Hamlets for a success rate that exceeds all counterparts in terms of breaking the cycles of dependency that prevent veterans in crisis from leading rewarding and sustainable lives. However, without significant investment it would have had to close in around five years time.
The Mayor said, “The outstanding support offered at New Belvedere House is already making a tremendous difference and this new funding will enable it to help hundreds more.
“The hostel is set to be transformed into a world-class facility that helps our ex-service people out of hard times with the training, counselling and help they need to get firmly back on the right path to independent living.”
Dr Milroy added, “Our success in financing this project owes much to the profile given to VA’s work by the Independent/Evening Standard Homeless Veterans Campaign, which also signposted to our door veterans who would otherwise have become homeless.
“The Mayor’s commitment to tackling this issue resonates with our own pledge of ‘No first night out’ for any veteran in crisis. This further evidence of City Hall’s commitment to supporting our work is heartwarming and will take Veterans Aid several steps nearer to building on success and delivering a world class facility.”
“Many organisations have become stakeholders in our hostel transformation project, an undertaking that has captured the imagination of service providers worldwide. It plays a key part in delivery of our welfare to wellbeing model and has seen Bloomberg alone commit 1,200 volunteers to work on an element of the renovation.”
ENDS
*Veterans Aid is the nation’s one-stop shop for ex-servicemen and women in crisis. Last year it took more than 4,000 calls for help and provided more than 22,000 nights of accommodation. For more information about Veterans Aid contact Glyn Strong on 0044 (0) 7806 920087 (plus weekend 01494 762270) or email media@veterans-aid.net. See also http://veterans-aid.net
KEY POINTS
1. Veterans Aid has:
- Found accommodation for more than 100 veterans since January 2015.
- Driven down the number of veterans on the streets to its lowest for many years (See DCLG figures; Veterans no longer feature as a separate category).
- Had an impact in wider societal terms through its unique ‘Welfare to Wellbeing’ model. (See Centre for Social Justice Report: April 2014. Improving transitions for military leavers. P 51/52.)
- In 2013 Veterans Aid received £56,000 from the GLA under its Personal Empowerment Programme for homeless veterans in London.