New strategy to reduce homelessness in Telford

A revised Homelessness Strategy to cover the next five years will see an existing rough sleeping project extended to run all year round in partnership with a local homelessness charity.

This, along with other measures, is set to be approved by Telford & Wrekin Council's cabinet at its next meeting.

Funding has also been approved for 12 months for two new posts to provide a prevention role in the council’s housing team to target support at preventing domestic violence and youth homelessness.

Additional one-off funding of £95,000 on top of the existing homelessness prevention budget has been approved for the next 12 months to boost the initiative to reduce homelessness.

The council says the strategy has four priorities, to wnsure that high quality housing advice is accessible and well promoted, to join up council and external services to prevent homelessness arising wherever possible, to ensure that temporary accommodation is well managed and meets the needs of the service, ensuring people move onto sustainable housing as soon as possible – minimizing the use of bed and breakfast accommodation and to work with partners to support vulnerable groups and prevent rough sleeping

The additional funding will enable a number of new actions to be delivered to help reduce and prevent homelessness. These include extending the existing rough sleeping project to be run all year round in partnership with Maninplace, this has previously only been run during the three coldest months of the year.

It will also allow continual support and expand the use of Dodmore Grange for young people on an initial 12 month pilot and pay for the design a suite of leaflets with housing and tenancy advice which people can access from the housing website.

The money will also be used to carry out exit surveys with young people to understand their experiences in supported or temporary accommodation to help reduce homelessness and increase successful moves to future tenancies and develop a tool kit aimed at young people to help prevent homelessness. This can then be promoted to schools and colleges.

The council will also dentify champions in each service who aim to raise awareness of homelessness to enable quick responses to queries and develop a training package for people in temporary accommodation with a certificate to show they are tenant ready to help move clients into sustainable housing

Councillor Richard Overton, Telford & Wrekin Council’s cabinet member for Housing,said: ““Rough sleeping is inherently dangerous and exposes people to potential health deterioration.

“We have a statutory duty to review and update our Homelessness Strategy every fiveyears so we carried out a review of our current homelessness situation including trends and needs.

“Consultation has been carried out with a wide range of stakeholders. As a result, the strategy sets out a range of measures for tackling homelessness including the provision of positive interventions and promoting the inclusion of all disadvantaged groups.”

Alan Olver, managing director of homelessness charity Maninplace, said: “We are pleased to have this opportunity to extend the current homelessness service to 365 days a year in order to prevent the only option that is open to some people– which is rough sleeping.”

The strategy is recommended for approval by Telford & Wrekin Council’s cabinet on Thursday.