A homeless charity which helps 100 Bradford families is facing closure from funding cuts.

The Gingerbread Housing Project, which has operated in the district for 20 years, is expected to find out today that it has lost its £162,000 funding as Bradford Council “remodels” its services for vulnerable people.

The Council has said that Gingerbread might not be part of the new, streamlined homelessness strategy because the project is “not providing the quality of service” expected.

Now a war of words has broken out as the charity says its 11 staff will face redundancy and the 100 families it deals with an uncertain future.

Jayne Hellowell, the Council’s commissioning service manager for adults and housing-related support, said the local authority had asked a range of organisations which provide services for homeless people in the district to make savings and strike up working partnerships.

She said: “Nine organisations have agreed to work together in four hubs to bring about efficiency savings and prevent homeless people being passed from pillar to post.

“Unfortunately Gingerbread has been unable to make the required efficiencies or compromise or work with anyone else.

“In addition, they are not providing the quality of service we expect despite the support the authority has given them over the past 12 months.

“The authority expects the highest-quality service from all our providers which has a direct and positive impact for homeless people and families.”

Corine Campbell, project manager of Gingerbread, which has been operating in Bradford for almost 20 years, said the charity had made every effort to meet the Council’s expectations.

Mrs Campbell said: “Gingerbread offered from the start of this process to make the required efficiency savings by providing the same level of service at a reduced rate. This was rejected.

“Discussions with eight other providers led to three separate proposals on ways of working together with other providers, however every proposal Gingerbread came up with was rejected by Supporting People.”

She defended the organisation’s service, which provides temporary accommodation for homeless single-parent families.

“The quality of our service provision is excellent,” she said.

“We have worked closely with Supporting People over the last 18 months to implement the improvements they asked for.”

Mrs Campbell said additional external support totalling more than £100,000 would also be lost.

Gingerbread is expecting the decision to cut its funding to be taken at a meeting of the Council’s Supporting People Strategic Core Group today.

  • Read the full story in Monday's T&A