Trust for London

London is deeply unequal. We want to see a fairer capital city, where everyone has a chance to succeed, no matter who they are.    To achieve this, we’ll fund organisations fighting for economic and social justice in our city.    *What we want to fund*    These two aims – economic and social justice - are the cornerstone of our strategy. Sitting under each of them are several priority areas, which set out what we want to fund over the next six years.    1/ Economic justice    Our economic justice funding aim is about ensuring Londoners on low incomes can afford a decent standard of living.     This means increasing people’s incomes & reducing their cost of living. Under our economic justice aim, we’ll fund work under 4 priority areas:    ▪️ Decent work  ▪️ Tackling the housing crisis  ▪️ Improving social security  ▪️ Ending the poverty premium    2/ Social jusice    Our social justice funding aim will focus on tackling injustices that lead to some Londoners being disproportionately affected by poverty.      Under our social justice aim, we’ll fund work across 3 priority areas:    ▪️ Ending migrant destitution  ▪️ Racial justice*  ▪️ Disability justice**    You can find out about these priority areas and the type of work we want to fund on our website.     Applications are open now (except for disability justice – see below), and we’re accepting applications on a rolling basis.    If you’re thinking about applying please make sure you read through our funding guidelines and book a call with us to discuss your ideas.    Find out more: https://lnkd.in/eH582mdT   --- *Racial justice works a little differently to our other funding priorities. After two successful open funding rounds, we’re being even more intentional about our funding. So although applications are open, make sure you read the relevant webpage, and speak to our racial justice lead.    **Disability justice applications are closed until 2025, following two open funding rounds from 2022-2024. 

*5 stats to help us understand poverty in London* 1/ London's poverty rate is 24%.  That’s one in four. Or, in total, around 2.2 million Londoners living in poverty.   London’s poverty rate is higher than that for the rest of England, which is 21%.      2/ Poverty doesn’t affect everyone equally.  Black and ethnic minority (BME) Londoners are significantly more likely to be in poverty than white Londoners. 34% of BME Londoners are in poverty - double the proportion of white Londoners (17%).  30% of families that include a Disabled person are in poverty compared to 22% of those without a Disabled household member.  3/ Low pay   Costs in London are extortionate, and low pay is far too common.   One in six working Londoners are low-paid – and in total, more than half of adult Londoners in poverty are employed.     4/ Housing   High housing costs push many Londoners into poverty.   Before we take housing costs into account, the number of people in poverty is 14%. This rises to 24% when you consider the cost of housing.   Put another way, this means that accounting for the high housing costs in the capital leads to almost one million more people being judged to be in poverty.  Housing impacts the poverty rate more in London than any other part of the UK. 5/ Poverty and deprivation impact many parts of your life.   For example, road traffic collisions.   In 2022, there were more than *twice as many road traffic collisions* in the most deprived parts of London, than in the least. ---    This week is London Challenge Poverty Week – where organisations across the capital come together to raise awareness of poverty in our capital city. Visit London’s Poverty Profile for more data on poverty and inequality in London: https://lnkd.in/eeF54gNd 

New research: London's private rented sector is shrinking, with only *5%* of London private rentals affordable to low-income households. With London Councils, we funded new analysis by Savills of the availability of properties in the private rented sector in London. The key findings: 1/ Only 5% of rental listings are affordable to people relying on LHA In April 2024, the government raised Local Housing Allowance rates to cover the lowest 30% of local market rents. But in July-September 2024, only 5% of London rental listings were affordable on LHA. This is because LHA rates are set from April using rental data from the previous September. In the context of rapidly rising rents, these rates are quickly out of step with real market conditions. 2/ The rate of landlords leaving the rental market has increased sharply From April 2021 to December 2023 45,000 rental properties were sold without replacement. This accounts for 4.3% of London’s privately rented homes. 3/ The rental market is shrinking most in the most affordable areas During 2023, the stock of private rented sector homes in the most affordable locations reduced by 3.3% per month as a proportion of available listings compared to 2.6% per month across the rest of London. *Why does this matter?* A shortage of social housing means Londoners increasingly rely on private renting to have a place to live. 2.7 million Londoners now live in private rented accommodation - and 34% are living in poverty. If there are fewer affordable private rented homes in the capital, life becomes more difficult for these millions of renters. More people will be pushed into homelessness. And when people become homeless, their local authority often relies on the private rented sector to provide them with temporary accommodation. But the fewer affordable properties there are, the more impossible this becomes. *What can we do?* The government urgently needs to act to make homes more affordable: through ensuring Local Housing Allowance covers the actual costs of renting for those who need it, funding for local authorities to support those made homeless in the broken housing market, and ultimately significant investment in building social housing. Read the full research on our website.

No-one in paid work should be struggling to make ends meet. But London has a huge problem with low pay. More than half a million Londoners are low paid – 574,000 people , 13.3% of jobs in the capital. In the last decade, huge strides have been made in eradicating low pay. In every region of the UK, the proportion of low paid jobs has decreased since 2012. But that decrease has been slowest in London. Between 2012 and 2023, low pay has decreased by 3% in London – less than half the UK’s average reduction over the same period. Some findings about the picture of low pay in London, from Living Wage Foundation's new report... ◼ Outer London is a low pay hotspot. London’s Outer Boroughs make up 4 of the 5 Local Authorities with the highest rate of low pay in the UK (Brent, Waltham Forest, Bexley and Redbridge). Together their rate of low pay is twice as high as the Inner Boroughs (22 per cent versus 9 per cent). ◼ Hospitality is the sector with the highest rate of low pay in London with almost half (49 per cent) of these jobs being low paid in the capital. ◼ Women are more likely to be low paid than men in London (15 per cent vs 12 per cent). ◼ Four in ten part time workers in London are low paid. ◼ Renters in London are more than twice as likely to be low paid than homeowners (20 per cent versus 8 per cent) Far too many Londoners are struggling to get by because of low pay or insecure work. Low pay leaves people with no financial safety net, unable to afford essentials. And low pay affects many areas of workers’ lives. Living Wage Foundation's research found that low pay had a negative impact on people’s mental health, their relationships, their physical health and their sleep. Paying the real Living Wage is the single most important thing employers can do to help lift people out of poverty. It's the only wage rate that reflects actual cost of living.

Which London boroughs have higher levels of poverty? How does the picture of inequality differ across boroughs?     It can be tricky to accurately measure levels of poverty at a local level. But we can say which boroughs have broadly higher – and lower – levels of poverty, compared to the rest of London. Generally, Inner London boroughs and boroughs in the North and East of the city have lower levels of poverty. Boroughs with lower levels of poverty are more often on the outskirts of the city - particularly in the South West. Compared to the rest of England, *16 London boroughs* have levels of poverty that are significantly above average. Only three have lower. Each borough also has different dimensions to consider when looking at inequality. Explore poverty and inequality for all of London's boroughs: https://lnkd.in/eqTmZwrb  

Today we’re announcing that Alex Sutton, our director of grants, will be stepping down to take on an exciting new role with A B Charitable Trust. Alex joined us in 2022, bringing over 15 years of experience working in immigration, youth and homelessness work and international development. Since then he’s worked alongside Director of Grants Klara Skrivankova to jointly lead our grant making efforts. Throughout Alex’s time at Trust for London, his experience, dedication, thoughtfulness and empathetic approach have been invaluable. He’s been instrumental in helping to shape our 2030 funding strategy, setting us up to have a real impact over the coming years. We want to thank him for his work at Trust for London, and wish him all the best in his next role. Alex will be at Trust for London until the end of the year, and begin his new role as Director at A B Charitable Trust at the start of 2025. With Alex moving on, we’re now looking for a new Director of Grants to join our team. You can view the vacancy here, open until Wednesday 13 November: https://lnkd.in/egz9nUYm

Since the general election in July, *10,000 children* have been pulled into poverty by the two-child limit, according to new analysis from Child Poverty Action Group UK. That’s 109 children each day since July 5th. Scrapping the two child limit would lift hundreds of thousands of children out of poverty immediately. No other action would help so many children so quickly, or be such a cost-effective way to do so. The government should scrap the policy at the budget on 30 October.

Have you ever wondered how we decide how much money to give out? Trust for London is lucky to have a large endowment. Understandably, we sometimes get asked why we aren’t giving out more – or even all of the – money. In a new blog on our website, our director of finance and resources Heather Taylor shares more about our endowment and how we make decisions about how much funding to give out, balancing the needs of today with those of future generations. Read the full blog to find out more about how we manage our endowment: https://bit.ly/4gHd1Kw

Great to see Impact Finance Consulting's work with ARK RESETTLEMENT SERVICES recognised in the shortlist for the Social Enterprise UK awards. IFC worked with the team at ARK to secure £700,000 social investment funding from ourselves and Social Investment Business. ARK supports people on probation to reintegrate into the community. It provides ex-offenders housing and support they need to move their lives away from crime. Our loan will enable the team to purchase its first property in Haringey London, which will increase its capacity to support vulnerable people nearing the end of a custodial sentence, or newly released into the community from prison.

Last week, the Labour Party held its first annual conference while in government for 14 years. And in just a couple of weeks, it will have been 100 days since Keir Starmer became Prime Minister – a time by which his party has promised to bring legislation to Parliament providing “a new deal for workers”. Our funded partners the Work Rights Centre, who support people in London and Manchester to access employment justice, were at the conference.   Reflecting on the conference, CEO Dr Dora-Olivia Vicol said: “The Employment Bill could be the biggest shake-up of employment law in a generation, but much is unknown.  “One hopes that the pressure of the 100 day milestone doesn't prevent the government from thinking through the details of the policy proposals communicated so far, and from taking a holistic approach to employment protections.” Read her full reflections on the conference, the Employment Bill and the Labour Government’s approach to migrant workers here:  https://lnkd.in/es3d4Xqk