By staff writer                                                       14/01/08
A Birmingham based Black led specialist housing provider is fighting to keep its doors open after their local council has decided to pull the plug on their funding.

The Medway Hostel in the west midlands need an eleventh hour reprieve in order to keep its 10 bed hostel for black mental health survivors afloat.  The Hostel which is run by Onmincare Community services have been locked in an ongoing dispute with their local funders from the Supporting People division of social services, at Birmingham City Council since they committed to shutting the place down.

Terminating Medway Hostel's services would sound the death knell to a trusted 16 year services within the heart of the black community.

The only service of it's kind in the area, Medway Hostel offer support and shelter to the most desperate of cases in the community, with the majority of Medway's clients discovering their service after being turned away from many other providers.  

‘Many people we have taken in have been rejected by other organisations.

We have clients here, who been discharged from hospital but have not been allocated a social worker for months and are  in need of medication and we have been managing these issue for them.  We have contacted social services to try and get social workers allocated to our clients but we have not had a response. We have no idea what will happen to this client if we are forced to shut down,' George Gordon, director of Omincare Community Services Ltd said.

Medway staff have had to contend with manoeuvres from social services to try and remove the residents and place them in inappropriate care in moves to empty the building of it's clients.

‘Recently we have had to deal with incidences where clients have been taken from our care by social services and placed in a flat without heating or light.  They returned to us because they didn't know what else to do.  We cannot turn people like that away and they have no where else to go if we don't support them. Vulnerable people should not be subject to this kind of thing, this has put unnecessary strain on all of staff and clients alike,' Gordon said.

Omnicare Community Services Ltd established the hostel after it became clear that many mental health service users were falling through care gaps and becoming destitute or getting trapped in the revolving door syndrome.

Driven by the need to provide the culturally appropriate care that is  essential for the maintenance of mental health and well being of service users,  the community group have now established a trusted service.  Medway Hostel has become a place where those on the margins of society can function in without having to explain themselves to people who do understand their cultural norms.

With no guarantee of appropriate alternative accommodation, the residents at Medway Hostel face the prospect of being turned out in the cold or into services with no understanding of their needs. 

Based on the motto ‘Caring for our own', the Meday Hostel has proved a refuge for large number of people in the 16 years that it has been opened. ‘The last thing we want to see are the most such vulnerable people potentially made homeless, especially in the middle of winter - I can't think of anything more cruel.' Gordon said.

Omincare's management team believe funders have refused to acknowledge the importance of this service or the consequences shutting this service will have for the mental health and well being of their clients.

The battle to keep the hostel open comes in the wake of the Minister of State's for Health Ivan Lewis statement that government was committed to ensuring mental health services are sensitive to the need of different black and minority ethnic communities.

Lewis made these comments to the BBC, last December, after findings from the latest Count Me In Census showed that discrimination within mental health services has lead to the continuing increase the numbers of black people being forced into psychiatric care, despite a fall in detention rates nationally.

Lewis said to BBC online ‘I will consult representatives of the relevant communities, leaders, managers and frontline staff to identify next steps."

The management team at Omnicare Community Services Ltd, has made it clear that they would welcome a meeting with the minister at his earliest convenience to identify how the Medway Hostel, which has become a place of refuge can be kept open permanently.

BMH UK have learned that Omnicare Community Services Ltd, lawyers, Anthony Collins, have written to their funders  pointing out the decision to slash Medway's funding could be in breach of the law.

They point out that the Council's failure to conduct a Race Equality Impact Assessment in order to establish if any minority groups would be adversely affected by this cut in funds means that their decision could be in breach of the Race Relations Amendment Act.

Provisions under the Act require public bodies to carry a race review to ensure that such decision do not adversely effect any minority ethnic groups.

Correspondence has also been sent to Birmingham City Council's Chief Executive Stephen Huges, from Omincare Community Services on the 2^nd of January.  To date   Omincare community services management team have not received a response BMH UK have learned.

In a move to raise the profile of their plight, Omincare has secured the backing of churches across the west midlands through the national umbrellas body; The CBLC (Council of Black led churches).

The CBLC have committed to galvanising the support of thousands of their member across the west midlands who will dedicate a day of prayer in support of keeping the Medway Hostel open permanently.