Andy Ludlow awards

£5000 first prize: Lambeth Working Women's Crack Project

Last year's winner, the Working Women's Crack Project, is a multi-agency scheme that helps female prostitutes who are addicted to crack. It offers help with housing, detox and rehabilitation services.

The project started as a result of a Lambeth police campaign to close down crack houses, and now involves Lambeth Crime Prevention Trust, Stockwell Drug Project, SLAM Addictions Unit, St Mungo's Housing Association and Lambeth council's substance misuse team.

"For the first six months we had a huge number of women coming to us because we were new. It has since become more stable," says director Harriet Smith. From April to September last year, 88 women were referred to the organisation. Of these, 20 have used a St Mungo's hostel, six have since gone on to second-stage accommodation, three have moved on to independent homes and nine have accessed treatment services from hospitals. Nearly one in four have reduced their drug use on a sustained basis.

"A good number of the women have children, who are in care or with grandparents," adds Smith. "Our ultimate aim is to renew contact between them, and some women from the second-stage hostel have had supervised meetings with their children."

£2000 prize: Mosaada Centre for single women in east London

Mosaada is a self-help organisation, working with single and homeless women in hostels, and launched in July 1999. It works with 10 hostels in the capital and offers one-to-one job searches, group support sessions and training programmes to help develop writing and communication skills. There are also programmes on sexual health.

Mosaada spent its prize money on a weekend course in confidence-building and a trip to Kew Gardens. Director Huda Al Amin recalls: "Ten women from hostels all over London attended the confidence-building course and it was fantastic. One woman came out saying she had not realised that she was sitting on a pot of gold – she had just not appreciated her skills. She is now developing another project to support other women."

The trip to Kew was attended by 35 women from the capital's hostels. "Everybody dressed up and we all took the boat from Westminster," says Al Amin. "It was the first time that any of the women had been outside central London since coming to stay at their various hostels."

£1000 prize: the London Refuge for Runaway Children

The London Refuge is a direct-access emergency service for homeless young people run by the St Christopher's Trust and the NSPCC and based in north London.

The eight-bed, 24-hour unit provides food, clothing and toiletries and clients can stay for up to two weeks. The average stay is two days.

The refuge used its prize money to send 12 staff on a course in family support work.

Since last year's awards, a family liaison officer has been hired to talk to young people in the refuge, find out why they ran away and, where appropriate, help them return to their families. "We are finding that some issues can be resolved and situations stabilised, and that users can return home," says Janet Glenn-Millanaise, manager of the London Refuge.

From April to September last year, 134 people came to the refuge, 43 of whom returned home or went to extended families.

£1000 prize: Depaul Trust

Launched last July, the Depaul Trust has helped 24 young homeless people learn web design and maintenance. The prize money went towards the development of the organisation's site, www.digitalstreets.org.

The website was built and is maintained by the trust's users, with content including reviews, creative writing and artwork. Alison Lightbourne, the trust's fundraiser, says: "The site went live in October and it's already on its third issue. We wanted it to be a sort of community for people who don't have one because they're homeless."

The website has a facility for people with learning difficulties or who cannot read, where that the text is spoken aloud and plans are afoot to create a chat room on the site.

The Depaul Trust runs a rolling web design course for 10 people at a time, part of its Drive Ahead programme, which encourages young people to study by offering them the prospect of learning how to drive a car.

£5000 prize: St Mungo's housing advice service for short-term prisoners at HMP Pentonville St Mungo's housing advice service was set up in November 2000. It aims to prevent homelessness among short-term and remand prisoners on their release by finding new accommodation or saving their existing housing: 30% of prisoners released in the UK each year have no fixed abode and short-term and remand prisoners receive no post-release support.

Dominic Raffo of St Mungo's says: "We've been able to use the award money to train staff in making links between hostels and learning and employment services.

"We're also arranging post-release support for ex-inmates, helping to arrange the furnishing of accommodation and debt advice, for example."

The service caters for 2000 prisoners each year and, since August, has extended its reach to Wormwood Scrubs.