Workers at a homeless charity are set to strike for a month over a pay dispute.

Employees at St Mungo’s will walk out after being offered a rise of just over two per cent.

Members of the Unite union will take action at sites in Brighton with disruption expected throughout June.

Sharon Graham, general secretary at Unite, said: “Charity workers who should be on the streets helping the homeless have reached breaking point.

“The workers are now taking a stand.

“Instead of seizing the initiative to end the dispute, management’s decision to offer a pitiful 2.25 per cent has spectacularly backfired.

“Now St Mungo’s faces a month-long strike and the workers have Unite’s total support.

“The pitiful pay offer has just made everyone in the union angrier. St Mungo’s have the answer in their own hands.

“Make Unite members a decent pay offer. Their indifference to the financial pressures facing their own staff is quite frankly astonishing.”

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The strikes come as part of a national action from the charity’s workers with pickets in London and Oxford as well as Brighton.

St Mungo’s worked with Brighton and Hove City Council to provide the No Second Night Out service which looked to limit the amount of time homeless people have to spend sleeping on the streets.

The service previously operated in Hymans Fine House in Burlington Street, Brighton, but was ended in March after government funding ceased.

The charity also provides emergency hostel support and an advice services as well as mental health support.

Emma Haddad, chief executive of St Mungo’s, said: “Our latest offer, combined with the annual pay rise proposed by the National Joint Council, would have meant a pay rise of at least ten per cent for those colleagues on the lowest salaries.

“This is what Unite has been asking for but voted against it.

“After all our efforts to find a solution to this dispute, a four-week strike is unprecedented and disproportionate.

“It will impact vulnerable people at risk of or recovering from homelessness.

“My door remains open to Unite every day during the strike.”