New Skylight centre launches today in North London after merger

Crisis Skylight Brent, our homelessness charity based in Harlesden, is to launch today at Brent Civic Centre.

The centre will offer employment, skills, housing and peer support services to homeless people in an area with the second highest number of rough sleepers in London.

The new service was created after Lift, originally set up by homeless people as the Brent Homeless User Group (B.HUG) in 2001, merged with national homelessness charity Crisis in April. Lift has already helped hundreds of people each year to find new homes, gain new skills and find employment and since the merger with Crisis has been able to extend its services.

The launch event will take place from 6-8.30pm and will include speeches from the Leader of Brent Council Cllr Muhammed Butt, Chair of Crisis Steve Holliday, Chief Executive of Crisis Jon Sparkes and former Chair of Crisis Martin Cheeseman.

Crisis Chief Executive Jon Sparkes said:  

“We are delighted to be welcoming the Lift team into Crisis. They have a strong reputation for fully involving homeless people in the shaping and delivery of their services. I am sure that we will learn a lot from each other as we work together to help people out of homelessness for good. 

“Joining forces with Lift will also enable us to extend our services and campaigning into another area of London. We recently started Crisis Skylight services in Croydon, so this will bring our services to eleven locations across the UK.” 

Lift Chief Executive Atara Fridler, who will become the Director of Crisis Skylight Brent said:  

“Over a number of years Lift has been able to make a bigger difference for and with disadvantaged people in Brent through collaboration with Crisis.   

“So when we considered how we would ensure more resources were available to tackle the drastic increase in homelessness in Brent and really make an impact in ending homelessness, Crisis was an obvious partner.  

“Sadly, a further reduction to benefits cap will be affecting more local residents in coming months, meaning that more people in Brent will be faced with homelessness.  Merging with Crisis means that we are in a better position to assist more of those affected and we are very much looking to continue our strong partnership with the council in responding to that.”