Adopting a Local Approach to
Ending Rough Sleeping
Neil Morland
Director of Growth & Regions
07816 935620
neil.morland@brighter-futures.org.uk
Evidence
• Research shows homelessness arises from a complex
combination of
– social factors (individual and/or inter-personal problems) and
– structural factors (housing and/or economic problems).
• For rough sleepers social factors are the primary cause of
homelessness with structural factors as a secondary cause.
• Analysis of CHAIN data shows that
– a third of rough sleepers are new people who flow onto the
streets
– another third are people stuck sleeping rough
– the final third are people returning back and forth from the
streets in-between being in living at a hostel, supported housing,
rented accommodation, families/friends, prison, and/or hospital
DCLG
• Government statistics published February 2011 show that on
any given night 1,768 people can found to be sleeping rough
in England.
• A cross government departmental working group has been
established to oversee the development and delivery of a new
framework for ending rough sleeping
• The Government defines rough sleeping as
People sleeping, about to bed down (sitting on/in or standing next
to their bedding) or actually bedded down in the open air (such as
on the streets, in tents, doorways, parks, bus shelters or
encampments). People in buildings or other places not designed for
habitation (such as stairwells, barns, sheds, car parks, cars, derelict
boats, stations, or “bashes”).
Strategy
• Local partners agree a plan that sets out when the
Government’s ambition can be achieved in the local area.
• Local delivery boards to oversee the implementation of local
plans for ending rough sleeping.
• Local practitioner groups to get the most entrenched street
homeless people off the streets that adopt the following as
definition of someone who is an entrenched rough sleeper
– Been seen sleeping rough in the past 3 months
– Been sleeping rough in 5 or more years out of the past 10,
and/or
– Been seen sleeping rough at least 50 times during that period
Prevent people from
becoming street homeless
• Do more to prevent non-priority single
people from becoming street homeless
• Improve access to private sector
accommodation for preventing non-priority
people from becoming homeless, and also
for planned move-on
Help people off the street
• Community/public intelligence and engagement,
including a 24 hour phone line
• 24/7 response from street outreach teams
including assessment of needs and referrals into
accommodation
• Reconnection to other areas across the UK for
people not from the local area
• Severe weather emergency provision
Stop people from returning
to the streets
• Develop a ‘working hostel’ for people who are jobready
• Adopt the successful practices learnt from the
Government’s the personalisation pilot for helping
street homeless people
• Establish a specialist service to meet the psychological
and emotional needs of street homeless people and
tackles complex trauma
• Target specialist interventions for street homeless
people with no recourse to public funds
Resources
• Sustainable funding is central to
successfully ending rough sleeping
• Services commissioned on outcomes
based framework
• Collaborative planning and commissioning
.
5 Whittle Court, Town Road, Stoke-on-Trent, ST1 2QE
t: 01782 406000
e: info@brighter-futures.org.uk
w: www.brighter-futures.org.uk