Months yet before York's new rough sleeping strategy is ready

The authority has been working on a new strategy since the shock announcement at the end of last September that it would not be renewing the Salvation Army’s £95,000 a year contract to provide a rough sleeping early intervention programme.

Instead, it said it would be expanding its own rough sleepers service under a new homelessness strategy, with the help of an extra £260,000 of government funding over the next two years.

The council is already expanding its own in-house rough sleeping navigators team.

The Salvation Army, meanwhile, has continued to provide an early intervention programme – which includes early-morning visits to rough sleepers and a rough sleepers drop-in service – without council funding.

Quizzed about when the new homelessness strategy would be completed, a council spokesperson said: “We expect a draft version to be ready for consideration by the housing scrutiny committee and external stakeholders, including those who have experience rough sleeping, within the next few months.”

The Salvation Army's Charlie Malarkey handing out Christmas hampers to rough sleepers in Coney Street last month. The charity continues to work with rough sleepers even though it's council funding ended. Pictured from left: Tessa, Charlie, Nicola and Dan (Image: Stephen Lewis)

In an interview with The Press, the authority’s Labour housing and safer communities chief Cllr Michael Pavlovic said: “We have made a commitment to protect the most vulnerable, and most people would agree that people sleeping in shop doorways are the most vulnerable.

“We are committed to ending rough sleeping, but it has got to be done right and that takes a bit of time.”

The strategy would be one that would not just tackle rough sleeping today – but for years to come, Cllr Pavlovic stressed.

He said charities and other organisations working with homeless people, as well as rough sleepers themselves, would all be involved in a consultation on the new strategy.

The Press understands that the new strategy will focus on preventing homelessness, as well as on making sure there is enough temporary and permanent accommodation for those who do end up with nowhere to live.

But there will also be a focus on ‘Housing First’ – a strategy aimed at homeless people with ‘complex and multiple needs’ which involves ‘immediate access to a secure and settled home’ plus wraparound support to tackle the issues which led to them becoming homeless.

A council spokesperson accepted that the aims of the strategy would not be able to be achieved by the council in isolation.

“They will all be delivered through partnerships and resource sharing across different teams from Housing, Adults, Childrens, Public Health and our wider partners including health, police, probation and others,” the spokesperson said.

The authority is still refusing to be drawn on whether the salvation Army could in future be involved in helping to deliver the strategy.

But if the council were to offer contracts to eternal organisations ‘all interested bodies would be able to make appropriate bids’, the spokesperson said.

Councillor Darryl Smalley, the opposition Liberal Democrat spokesperson for housing and safer communities, said council bosses had 'a lot of work to do to repair the trust that has been damaged in the cack-handed way they axed the Salvation Army’s contract."

But he added: "Over the last few years, York has made strides in supporting rough sleepers and homeless families. This includes the previous Lib Dem administration investing £433k in homelessness support secured from the Rough Sleeping Initiative.

“We look forward to working constructively on the refreshed Homelessness and Rough Sleeping Strategy. The most basic responsibility of the council is to ensure nobody needs to sleep rough in York."