Mark has nearly 30 years in the voluntary / not for profit sector, my career has been characterised by working with some of societies most excluded individuals. I am motivated by the challenge of finding innovative solutions to complex problems.
Over the last 10 years he has worked specifically within the homelessness sector. His current role is:
June 2010 – Present, Director of Strategy, Partnership and Innovation for Homeless Link
Homeless Link is the umbrella body for organisations working to end single homelessness and rough sleeping. We work with 500+ member organisations collectively seeing 70,000 people in housing need every day. As Director of Strategy, Partnership and Innovation he has leadership responsibility for:
• Strategy and Partnership Teams – working across the country and home based, the teams create strategic alliances and partnerships in priority local areas. Working within the local authority localisation context they draw upon latest thinking to develop new and effective approaches. A significant part of their role is ensuring that homelessness remains on the local strategic agenda. They do this by developing networks of service providers, users and commissioners.
• Innovations and Good Practice Team – anticipating and responding to changes in policy this team maintains a typology of good practice for use by local organisations. They also run a number of innovations networks in each area of service delivery.
• Homelessness Transition Fund Grants Team – providing financial incentives and leverage for change this team manages a £20 million grants programme. I acted as a moderator to the whole programme during the allocations period. Now fully allocated, I am working with this team to develop sustainability strategies for grant recipients.
Prior to this he worked for a large homelessness service provider: Look Ahead Housing and Care
Look Ahead is a special needs housing provider working across London and the South East. He had leadership responsibility for hostel services for 173 entrenched rough sleepers operating from three buildings in central London, developing a continuous improvement programme, responsibility for restructuring two tenancy sustainment teams to ensure financial viability and contract compliance. The service included in excess of 1,000 units of scattered housing stock.
Before working in Homelessness he worked in addiction and mental health services. Including spending two years as the Director of Services at Phoenix House (Now Phoenix Futures - a medium sized addiction organisation) and seven years at Turning Point (a large social care charity) managing and developing a range of addiction and mental health services.
