Liverpool’s Rough Sleeper Plan Working

A Liverpool City council plan to provide people who sleep rough with a ‘bricks and mortar’ solution to their accommodation issues is seeing results.

In June, the council received a £280,000 funding boost from the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government (MHCLG) to take people off the streets and support them into long-term accommodation. Since September 51 rough sleepers have been taken off streets and into accommodation through the initiative, 34 have gone into a place of their own, reports 24Housing.

Our consortium colleagues at New Start and Excel Housing Solutions have been working with Liverpool YMCA and the Whitechapel Centre to put the plan into action. The extra funding has been used to recruit five new members of support staff to work with people who sleep rough – ensuring they can access the services they need.

The RSI project worked with a variety of people in need, including those currently in temporary accommodation or using the Labre House Rough Sleeper night hub, those who would not consider temporary accommodation and people with no access to public funds who were ready for work. Investing £11m a year on services targeted at those at risk of homelessness, the council also finds more than 700 temporary accommodation spaces and last year provided help to over 5,000 households at risk of becoming homeless.

Director of Adult Services in Liverpool, Martin Farran, explains how an approach was adopted to put the needs of the individual at the centre, developing a strategy both flexible and personal. He said: “We wanted to give people the hope and reassurance that they were coming off the streets and into a place where they could find safety and stability on a permanent basis. We worked closely with our partners to identify properties that would meet the needs of the individuals. It’s also important that support staff gain the trust of individuals and give them a sense of ownership over the process.”

Liverpool City Council Deputy Mayor and Cabinet Member for Housing Cllr Lynnie Hinnigan said: “The immediate support we provide to people who sleep rough to get them off the streets and into safety is the very visible side of what the council and our partners do.”

“Our aim is to go much further than supporting people out of rough sleeping. We are putting the mechanisms in place to keep them off the streets for good and to turn their lives around,” she added.