The chairman of homelessness charity Crisis’ board of trustees has resigned following the breakdown of the merger talks between the charity and Shelter.
David Edmonds, a former Housing Corporation chief executive, said he was disappointed that “strong arguments for putting the two together” had been rejected.

Edmonds told Housing Today: “The arrangements were very compelling and we got very close in negotiations to a set of arrangements. There had been a number of Crisis trustees who would join the board, and I felt that both charities’ interests would be best served by a single organisation.”

Edmonds challenged the view that Crisis’ ethos would have disappeared under the merger, arguing that it would have developed within a new organisation.

Shelter has made no secret of the fact that it too was surprised and disappointed at Crisis’ shock announcement last week (Housing Today, 14 February).

Peter Robson, chairman of the charity’s board of trustees, said that during recent months significant progress had been made on steps towards achieving a merger by the end of March.

Insiders speculated that the decision not to merge was prompted by a disagreement over who would head the new organisation.

But Crisis chief executive Shaks Ghosh (pictured) strongly denied this. Speaking to Housing Today, she described the suggestion as “ridiculous”.

“The merger was never about a jobs carve-up,” she stressed. “It was about principles."

“The trustees decided that homeless people would be better served by staying separate, and, ultimately, in the process of negotiations we have to touch base and see if our clients are going to be well served.”

Shelter focused mostly on people’s legal rights, while Crisis focused more on individuals and their needs, she added. Fears that this personal approach may be lost through merger helped prompt the decision, Ghosh explained.

Source

Housing Today