THE Community Foundation for Northern Ireland is offering local organisations the opportunity to develop new ideas to address the root causes of homelessness and housing issues.
Its three-year `Housing & Homelessness Programme', funded by the Oak Foundation, will provide opportunities for organisations to collaborate around specific challenges within housing and homelessness.
It also aims to develop new solutions that can be put forward for grant-funding.
As a first step, between mid-September and October 22, individuals with personal experience of housing issues and homelessness are being asked to identify what these root causes are.
This will be carried out through partnerships with local homelessness charities, who will gather information from their clients and a public survey on the foundation's website.
A set of priority challenges will then be identified and organisations will be invited to develop a project idea in response.
The ideas developed through the programme will be eligible for a grant of between £15,000 and 25,000.
Róisín Wood, chief executive at the Community Foundation, said: "Housing and homelessness have many complex and inter-related causes that can't be addressed in isolation, or without meaningful input from the people affected.
"As a first step we're inviting people with experience of housing issues and homelessness to tell us what they think the priority challenges should be," she said.
