Grants of £20 million a year to tackle disadvantage across the capital

Cash injection to support disadvantaged older people in Merton 

A Merton charity has received a large cash boost to support disadvantaged older people across the borough with financial, housing and care issues.

City Bridge Trust, the City of London Corporation’s charity funder, is giving £248,000 to Age UK Merton, to increase the services it offers to older people in Merton.

The funding will support the charity’s work providing information and advice, casework support, outreach work and preventive support to disadvantaged older people in Merton. It will do this by expanding its outreach and home visiting service.

The charity will support over 500 people a year through a variety of different channels, seeking to help people maximise their income, alleviate anxiety and make informed choices about finances, care and other key issues relating to later life.

Dhruv Patel, Chairman of the City of London Corporation’s City Bridge Trust Committee, said:

“Navigating key services can be overwhelming and cause anxiety for all of us, but this is especially true for the most vulnerable in society.

“Age UK Merton is providing a lifeline for disadvantaged older people in Merton who may struggle with these pressures, offering a helping hand to deal with and address important issues. This funding will help them support more elderly people in the future.

“Now more than ever, the Trust has a crucial role to play in ensuring the sector stays strong and effective, particularly by helping smaller charities such as Age UK Merton.”

Rob Clarke, Chief Executive of Age UK Merton, said:

“We are delighted to receive funding from City Bridge Trust to provide high quality information, advice and casework support for disadvantaged older people in the London Borough of Merton.

“We know many older people struggle to get by day by day. Our support will enable them to maximise their income and feel more confident to make informed choices about their futures. By doing so we aim to alleviate anxiety and allow our clients to get the most out of later life.”

Age UK Merton has been providing a wide range of services to older people since 1950. The organisation is based from the Elmwood Centre in Mitcham, where it also runs a diverse programme of social and physical activities to enable older people to feel connected and stay active. The charity also delivers a number of outreach programmes including At Home, which helps people to stay independent in their own homes, Befriending, which supports Merton’s most isolated older people and Living Well, which seeks to improve health and wellbeing by connecting people to services throughout the borough.

City Bridge Trust is the funding arm of the City of London Corporation’s charity, Bridge House Estates. It is London’s biggest independent grant giver, making grants of £20 million a year to tackle disadvantage across the capital. The Trust has awarded around 8,000 grants totalling over £400 million since it first began in 1995. It helps achieve the City Corporation’s aim of changing the lives of hundreds of thousands of Londoners.