Helping the Homeless Should be CSR Focus, Says Prince Charles

Prince Charles has called on companies to make job opportunities for the homeless a focus for their CSR.

The Prince made the appeal at a meeting of business leaders to mark 10 years of Business in the Community's Ready for Work Programme. The programme has put 2,000 homeless people back into work over that time.

He said: "In the last six months the number of homeless people has begun to rise and I fear this trend will continue"

The Prince also added: "It is estimated that there are some 20,000 people in this country who are either homeless, or who have experienced homelessness, who could be back at work but are not."

The Ready for Work programme will now double its target and aim to get another 2,000 people back into work by 2015. However, in order to do this, it needs more firms to include supporting homeless people as part of their CSR programmes.

John Varley, chair of BITC's Business Action on Homelessness and Senior Advisor to the board of Barclays, said: "We believe that employment is one of the most effective routes out of homelessness. Businesses should be part of the solution - not just because it's the right thing to do, but because it offers great business benefits."

In a comment piece written for BITC, Mr Varley warned that, historically, companies were out of step with public opinion by not prioritising homelessness as part of their CSR strategies. He said that ten years ago a survey showed that homeless was the second most important issue to child abuse. However, companies ranked it as only 14th in their priorities for CSR funding. Mr Varley said that a decade later, homelessness trends were again giving cause for concern. Estimates of the UK's hidden homeless are as high as 400,000 people.

Mr Varley said that business need to 'step up in larger numbers' to help tackle the issue of homelessness in coming years.

BITC's Business Action on Homelessness, which runs the Ready for Work Programme, is supported by eight high profile British businesses. These have all made helping homeless people back into work a priority. They are: Accenture, Barclays, Bain & Company, Carillion, KPMG, Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer, Marks & Spencer and Royal Mail.

One person helped by this programme was Matt Dye, who became homeless after his business went under and he got heavily into debt. He was offered a work placement with Carillion across a number of their departments. Once this was over, he worked with a job coach from Carillion who helped Matt with his CV and supported him to apply for a job within the construction arm of the business.

The combination of the experience, with this support, gave Matt confidence. He so impressed the interviewers that they offered him the job as a Site Manager.

As the recession continues to bite in the UK, helping homeless people back into work will become increasingly urgent. This kind of programme should become a CSR priority for many more businesses.

Photo credit: Amplified2010 (Kate Arkless Gray)