£270,000 for homelessness and rough sleeping
The Council has secured almost £270,000 additional Government funding to tackle homelessness and rough sleeping following another successful bid.
The funding will ensure that the Council and its partners can continue to provide essential services to prevent rough sleeping.
This includes continuing a project where extra support is provided to clients with the most complex needs to sustain their tenancy. The aim is to prevent people losing their home and ending up sleeping rough. From April-December 2019, this project supported 224 people in the borough.
The funding will also tackle the root causes of rough sleeping. Not only will it mean that the existing support service for people with mental health issues will continue, but it will also fund a new worker to provide direct help to people with substance misuse issues.
This funding will also enable the Council to deliver outreach services to work directly with those sleeping rough by providing support and intervention, providing alternative accommodation options.
Alongside prevention, there is also a need to find more safe and warm housing for those who become homeless or sleep rough.
The additional funding will enable the Council to introduce a new bond scheme. This will provide a bond of up to £3,000 as security for landlords who accommodate homeless clients.
The bond provides a guarantee to the landlord that any unpaid rent or damage up to that value will be repaid. The scheme aims to increase the number of landlords who will accommodate people who are or have been homeless or rough sleeping. The demand for services to prevent rough sleeping is continual and this funding will help provide these much needed local services.
Councillor David Wright, Cabinet Member for Housing, said “This funding is great news for us as it allows us to deliver one of the Council’s priorities in our programme to Protect, Care and Invest to create a better borough.
“This sets out the Council’s aim to seek to eradicate rough sleeping, as even one person on the streets is one too many.
“This will provide part of the solution of how we can beat rough sleeping. We will also continue to work with our partners to provide support to rough sleepers.”
The Council Housing Service provides advice and support to anyone who is homeless and provides funding to local borough charities – Maninplace, STAY and KiP@Maninplace, (which is a community initiative of Maninplace) to provide additional services to help homeless clients and to respond to the needs of rough sleepers.
Anyone who wishes to make a donation can visit http://homeless.telford.gov.uk/. Donations made via the website are shared amongst partner organisations.
