Statement regarding proposed organisation-wide restructure at Crisis

Matt Downie, Chief Executive of Crisis, said: “These are very challenging times for Crisis and the rest of the charity sector. We’re experiencing a combination of increasing costs, rising demand for our services and reduced income. Going straight from the pandemic into a cost-of-living crisis, with the highest inflation rates in decades, has had a significant impact on our income and costs.

“The vast majority of our work at Crisis is funded by donations from the public, and we are proud to have many kind and generous supporters. However, with so many households feeling the pressure of rising living costs, fewer people are able to support us and those who still can are donating less on average.    

“As our fundraising income has declined, we’ve had to make a series of difficult choices. At every turn, we’ve prioritised protecting our frontline services and, over the last year, we’ve made savings in all other aspects of our work. This has sadly not been enough and so to ensure Crisis remains financially sustainable in the long-term we are now going through an organisation-wide restructure which involves proposed redundancies and a reduction to our services in some areas. We are in a consultation period with staff on the proposed changes.”      

Proposed changes to our services 

“We currently deliver services in Skylight centres across Britain, where our staff and volunteers provide life-changing support, ending homelessness for thousands of people every year. We are consulting on the closure of our two smallest Skylight centres, South Yorkshire and Coventry & Warwickshire. This proposal has been made to try and minimise the number of Crisis members – people experiencing homelessness - affected across all of our services.  

 “Crisis exists to end homelessness, and this is something we never wanted to consider. Our services and staff offer compassion, hope and kindness to people going through some of the toughest moments in their lives. Making redundancies and closing services is very difficult for us to contemplate and it’s not a proposal we’ve made lightly. 

“We have already started conversations with our sector partners across South Yorkshire and Coventry & Warwickshire to make sure help will continue to be there for the people we support who, should the proposals go ahead, will be affected by this. We are profoundly grateful for the continued hard work and commitment of all our staff and volunteers as we navigate this difficult time.”    

For more information, please contact the Crisis press office on media@crisis.org.uk or 020 7426 3880 (07973 372587 out of hours).