The London Borough of Hackney Edge Drop In service has been Highly Commended in the London Homelessness Awards 2026. The awards ceremony is on December 3rd with Baroness Casey presenting the certificates and trophies. We asked Rosie Horrocks, the Housing Rights Manager for CARIS Families, a charity supporting families living in temporary accommodation across Hackney and Camden, to tell us about her work at the Edge. CARIS Families provide housing and family support, and run play clubs and trips out of hostels, helping families build connections and opportunities for children and parents.
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Every fortnight, I go to the Edge Advice drop-in Hackney where families living in temporary accommodation can access support with housing, health, benefits, debt, employment and language skills from a range of professionals.
We often meet before the drop-in starts to discuss issues that we’ve seen coming up in our work with families around the borough. There’s a strong relationship between the services which we’ve worked hard to build and maintain. It means we can have these conversations and work together to try to find solutions and escalate problems to improve things on a systems level.
Before the drop-in starts, we put out toys, make sure there is tea and coffee and get the room ready for the families who will be coming in. The drop-in runs at the same time as Hackney Playbus, which is parked directly opposite, and which is crucial to the drop-in’s success, making the drop-in a genuinely welcoming place to be. Over time, it has also helped us build a strong sense of community with the families who attend.
Once the doors open, families come in and we have a quick conversation about what they need help with. Many families have several issues at once, and it’s not unusual for someone to need support with housing, benefits, health and other services.
Recently, I met a family who had come to meet their health visitor at the drop-in. They mentioned that they were having housing problems, so the health visitor brought them over to speak with me.
They were struggling financially and worried about being evicted from their temporary accommodation. They had received letters about rent arrears but didn’t understand how they had fallen behind. They were also overcrowded following a recent addition to the family.
Because the benefits team was there, I was able to speak to them immediately. They checked the family’s records and found that their housing benefit had stopped but that no notification letter had been sent. We helped the family make a new application there and then and I contacted their housing officer to explain the situation and stop any enforcement action.
My work continues after the drop-in ends. Lots of families we work with need more than just one-off advice and I often take cases on. I took this family’s case on to make sure their new benefit claim went through and that their arrears were cleared. I also advocated with the council about their accommodation, which ultimately helped secure the family a more suitable home.
Families facing homelessness have to navigate extremely complicated systems across housing, benefits and health, and help is not always easy to access. Being able to come somewhere friendly, speak to someone face-to-face and get help straight away makes an enormous difference.
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For more information about CARIS Families go to Home