The History of Outside Story
The Outside Story Project began following a conversation between a representative of Homeless Link and the then head of the London Libraries Development Agency (now London Libraries). They decided that the offer from libraries to homeless people was not good enough. As a result of this meeting the LLDA and Homeless Link commissioned research into the use of libraries by the homeless sector. Focus groups were held with 2 groups of homeless people from Brent and Camden. Brent and Camden library staff were also surveyed to establish their perceptions of homeless library users.
The results are in the document ‘Get a cat and read Keats’:
Get a cat and read keats long version.pdf
Get a Cat and read Keats summary.pdf
As a result funding of £80,000 was obtained to run the project for twelve months. The project began on 22nd September 2008.
There are seven London boroughs involved in the project: Brent, Bromley, Camden, Greenwich, Hackney, Lambeth and Lewisham.
The lead borough for this project is Brent.