Following a motion passed by the Students Union in 2020 and initially established as a two-year partnership with St Mungo’s, one of the country’s leading charities on the issue, the LSE Homelessness Initiative continues to work as a collaboration between the School and the Students’ Union. Its mission is to lead and empower the LSE community to play a meaningful, active, and leading role in:
- Alleviating homelessness in the local community
- Efforts to end homelessness in society.
The initiative is made up of volunteers across the SU, professional service staff and faculty, and covers these areas of activity: Communication, Fundraising, Research, Security and Volunteering.
What we have done so far
On 7 November, LSEHI supported CASE in organising and hosting a panel discussion on youth homelessness in London and why this specific issue needs its own solution. You can watch the event and read more about the research it was based on here.
On 7 February 2024, LSEHI helped promote research conducted by Dr Michela Tinelli in CPEC, in collaboration with King’s College London. Dr Tinelli and her team have developed an innovative management dashboard for use by local authorities to help them better understand and meet demand for homelessness services. We also supported the organisation of an event to further develop the dashboard, which involved representatives from local authorities, commissioning boards and the charity sector.
On 15 November 2023, we worked with the Volunteering Centre to organise a Take Action seminar on homelessness. This was led by Professor Christine Whitehead and representatives from two homelessness charities, The Connection at St Martin’s and Amurt UK.
On 17 October 2023, we organised a panel event - Homelessness in London in a Time of Crisis. This was co-hosted by LSE's Executive Office and LSE London as part of the public lecture series. Chaired by Nancy Holman (LSE London) and moderated by Manny Hothi of Trust For London, it involved a conversation between Professor Christine Whitehead (LSE London), Dr Jennifer Wynter (Hackney Council), Pam Orchard (The Connection at St Martin’s), Maria-Christina Vogkli (LSE, R&I). They took questions from our 200+ strong audience and discussed the scale of the homelessness crisis, its drivers, possible solutions and how individuals can get involved.
So far, the total Raised from Staff and Student Fundraising Initiatives, including Christmas donations and the Donate your Commute campaign among others, was £16,044. More recently, at the LSE Christmas concert, £530 was raised and donated to St Mungo’s.
In 2020, Professor Christine Whitehead undertook a Rapid Review of issues around the “Recourse to Public Funds” policy for the Kerslake Commission Review of the government’s Everyone In campaign of 2020. This was published as part of the Kerslake Commissions report and can be found on the LSELondon website here.
We have organised various events to raise awareness, including the Take Action seminars and blog, social media engagement and highlighting numerous volunteering opportunities for students to work with homelessness and food poverty charities like St Mungo’s.
We've also supported the delivery of tailored, in-person training on how to support rough sleepers and homeless people to all LSE Security staff operating on campus. This is being repeated for new staff intake and expanded to include security staff in halls of residence.
We're proud to support our student societies and the charitable work they and their members do around homelessness, with examples including:
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RAG – Fundraising for St Mungo’s
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ISOC – Soup Kitchen
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Oxfam – did an event regarding initiatives for building houses for homeless people with SoloHaus
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Athletics Union – Tube stop walk for Homelessness & wanted to do a sleep rough in aid of this
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Hindu society did an event with Project Giving to serve food to the homeless
We are always planning more activities, from events to fundraising drives. If you are a member of staff or a student who has an idea or would like to volunteer as part of the initiative, please contact executiveoffice.lsehi@lse.ac.uk.