A year ago, I was elected on a promise to eradicate homelessness and rough sleeping in Hastings and Rye over the next ten years. This is a promise to local residents that I intend to keep.
I am pleased, that although we have been battered and bashed by Covid19, the Government hasn’t lost sight of its desire to ensure we support the most vulnerable and eradicate rough sleeping once and for all.
This determination to live up to this promise is clear in the actions that have been taken throughout the Covid19 pandemic to help and support rough sleepers and the homeless.
There was the £3.2 million given to local authorities back in March for the Everyone In campaign to help get rough sleepers off the streets as Coronavirus spread; then to ensure that as many of these rough sleepers do not return to the streets after the pandemic the Government launched the Next Steps Accommodation Programme which is providing funding to local authorities and their partners in 2020/21 of over £250 million for short/medium term accommodation solutions and also over £150 million to 276 schemes for longer term accommodation solutions.
Turning to this Winter, the Government has announced a welcome package of funding to protect rough sleepers over the winter months. This includes a £10 million Cold Weather Fund to support local authorities to provide self-contained and Covid-secure accommodation; a £2 million fund to enable faith and community groups to provide Covid-secure accommodation.
All told, over this pandemic and into the forthcoming Winter, the Government has allocated over £700 million ring-fenced funding in 2020/21 to support rough sleepers and those at risk of rough sleeping.
In Hastings in particular, we have an acute issue with rough sleeping. The local authority has one of the highest rates of rough sleeping in our region, having increased from 3 in 2010 to 48 people by 2018 sleeping on the streets. This increase is deeply concerning, but it’s not just the raw numbers that alarm me, it also the way in which we have approached this situation in the past.
I am clear that the best thing we can do is offer rough sleepers and those registered as homeless full wrap around support. Too often I have heard cases of rough sleepers being taken off the streets and put into temporary, insecure and poor quality accommodation, and simply left there. What I want to see is a proper series of interventions that provide more secure, quality accommodation, access to health services to deal with any addictions, health concerns or mental illness, and also support with skills training and employability advice to help get rough sleepers from the cold wintery streets, to being back on their feet, standing tall with a future to look on to with hope and pride.
Too often we have sought quick wins and short term solutions so that the statistics can look better and local people given a sense that the issue of rough sleeping is being successfully dealt with. But too often the wider support isn’t there and these very same people end up rough sleeping again.
I am pleased with the support and emphasis the Government has put on support to local authorities and organisations to help the most vulnerable but going forwards we need a much more holistic approach to tackling the underlying causes of rough sleeping and really giving these people a fresh start.