Agenda item

To consider the report of the Director.

The Interim System Lead, Housing Needs presented the report updating Members on progress with the Exeter City Council Rough Sleeping Initiative (RSI) including the bidding process, income received and project work streams and timescales.

The Government had announced a £30 million fund for 2018 to 2019 with further funding provisionally agreed for 2019 to 2020 targeted at local authorities with high numbers of people sleeping rough was also released.  Exeter, with 35 Rough Sleepers the previous autumn, had been one of the 83 Local Authorities in England who had been able to bid for funds through Round 1 of RSI funding and its eight work stream bid had succeeded with an award of £481,600.  Exeter had also been awarded a provisional allocation of £444,260 for the 2019/20 period subject to meeting certain criteria which it was believed could be achieved, one benchmark being a reduction in the homeless figures to be obtained through the official count figure to be determined in November 2018 with a further figure to follow in January.

The Interim System Lead, Housing Needs reported that the most recent count had returned a figure of 27 rough sleepers however an unverified estimate from Outreach and St Petrocks reported a figure closer to 40. Whilst a sudden increase of rough sleepers had recently occurred in London and, nationwide a 16% increase reported in the last 12 months, figures for Exeter showed a small reduction but had generally remained stable over recent years. He confirmed that priority for services was given to those with an Exeter background and the numbers incoming from other Devon origins was small.

Members welcomed the report, praising the new homeless shelter at the former restaurant on Magdalen Street many having attended the opening on 31 October 2018. The facility included CCTV coverage including the exterior and because of the location near busy roads it was the intention to provide suitable advise to users of the service. The shelter had four separate bedrooms plus ground floor areas to meet different needs and the service was mindful of clients who wished to be segregated for various reasons including drink and drug issues.

The Housing Solutions Needs lead advised that it was the intention to create Homelessness Mental Health Champions across the main Homelessness Services including Assertive Homelessness Outreach Service; Gabriel House; St Petrocks; Housing Options Service; ICE team and their partners. Ongoing training would be provided for the Champions, training them in brief interventions and Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT) and this could be rolled out to other parties including Members and officers, as appropriate.

Support for ex-offenders was a further strand and the prison service now had a duty to refer released prisoners to localauthorities. A meeting had been held with the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government lead Prison and Probation Advisor. There were regular cases of ex-offenders leaving prison without accommodation with a small number turning to rough sleeping on the streets of Exeter as well as other cities. One of the most significant challenges was assessing housing need and accessing accommodation for those who were in and out of prison on short term sentences and did not meet the threshold for accommodating by local authorities as they were often deemed as “non-priority”. Because of this a Prison Release Property had been included as one of the projects in the bid. 

People Scrutiny Committee noted the contents of the Rough Sleeping Initiative report and the actions that would be used to inform future service delivery. They also thanked those staff involved in securing the award and their on-going hard work in this area.