TAROE Trust will be closing down following a review that identified “unfavourable operating conditions”.
The charity's trustees said it had applied to more than 100 potential sources of core funding without success over recent months.
Darren Hartley, chief executive of the TAROE Trust, told Civil Society that a number of issues contributed to the decision.
These included a lack of available core funding, reduced capital grants, inflationary pressures and increased workforce and material costs for the charity.
The charity's operations will cease at the end of December, and its remaining funds will be redistributed to related charitable causes, a statement from the trustees reads.
Income
Set up in 2013, the TAROE Trust provides free advice and assistance on housing issues to disadvantaged people and is a representative organisation for tenants in England.
The charity only employed one member of staff on a part-time basis, chief executive Hartley, who says he has secured another role for when the charity closes.
According to the charity’s accounts for the financial year ending March 2023, it had a total income of over £63,000. This fell from £72,000 the previous year.
In 2020, the charity received a reported £210,000 cash injection from Fusion 21. The charity's chair Michael Gelling described it as a “lifeline”.
Indeed, before the donation the charity had a total income of just over £10,000 for the financial year ending 2020.
This July, Gelling told Fusion 21 that its recent achievements had only been possible due to the funding and that TAROE Trust's “standing in the sector and our potential for future impact is now very strong.”
‘Disappointed and saddened’
Chair of the TAROE Trust, Gelling, said: “I am truly disappointed and saddened that we have had to call it a day on the activities of TAROE Trust. It brings to an end a long tradition of tenant primacy.”
He continued: “We hope that our closure will highlight the gap that exists at a national level for a body that represents the interests of tenants from a tenants’ perspective.
“The failure of successive governments to fund an independent national tenant body lets tenants down at a time when the need has never been greater. We hope that one day steps can be taken to rectify this failure.”
