CHARITY bosses at Worcester Municipal Charities have taken the wraps off 25 new flats in a bid to help tackle the city’s homeless population.
2021 will see the opening of the new flats being created by the charity for Worcester’s ‘younger homeless’ in the old Probation offices on Shaw Street at a cost of £2.2million.
The offices are owned by the charity as an investment, with an old rent from probation of £150,000 a year which was used to give grants to the poor and to the charities which help them, like Maggs Day Centre and Citizens Advice.
After the Probation Service gave notice and left in 2019 following the Government’s decision to privatise half of the service, many of the staff moved out and went to Elgar House at Shrub Hill.
Charity trustees were then faced with a huge rent loss and an empty building which no-one wanted, so decided to turn it into flats for the homeless instead.
Homes England, part of the Government, welcomed the plan and awarded the charity £1million towards the cost of converting the large offices into 25 flats. The charity had to find a further £1million from its own money so had to sell investment properties and borrow money to make ends meet.
The building is being re-named Stillingfleet House to commemorate the work of Worcester Bishop Edward Stillingfleet who singlehandedly stopped the old Worcester Corporation of Freemen from stealing the charities’ money in the 1650s which they used to make gifts to King Charles and the Queen, and to pay military bills, including uniforms for the King’s Lifeguards who were billeted in the City for the Battle of Worcester.
Chairman Paul Griffith said: “The Charity Trustees are delighted to have found a new investment policy that fits in perfectly with its own charitable objectives of helping the poor, whilst generating a reasonable return at a time when returns on capital are low, and flats for the single homeless are in very short supply.
“The rents from the flats will all be spent on helping the poor, and hopefully creating more flats for the homeless.”
