More Money To Help Prevent Homelessness In Wirral

From next month, Wirral Council will get a share of new grant to help sort accommodation for those who are at risk of becoming homeless.

The new grant will give councils, such as Wirral, the power to prevent homelessness in the first place. This will go towards employing a homelessness prevention or tenancy support officer to work closely with people who are at risk of losing their homes. Under the previous system, Wirral would not have received any cash this year, but, under the new Flexible Homelesness Support Grant, they will receive £82,480 in April and a further £91,800 next year to help prevent homelessness.

Wirral Councillor Ian Lewis told the Liverpool Echo: “Under the existing system, funding can only be used when someone is already homeless, rather than preventing it happening in the first place. With this extra cash, I hope we now be able to do more to stop some of our residents becoming homeless or ending up rough sleeping in the cities.”

Communities Minister, Marcus Jones, said: “We’ve brought in a raft of measures over the last few months, from funding homelessness projects in 225 local authorities to changing the law by backing Bob Blackman’s Homelessness Reduction Bill to support for more people at risk of losing their homes.”

“We’re now going further and giving councils greater flexibility, so they can move away from costly intervention when a household is already homeless, to preventing this happening in the first place. That doesn’t make sense and was long overdue for change.”