The Council is required by the Homelessness Act 2002 to produce and monitor a Homelessness Strategy.
The legal definition of homelessness is: a household who has no home in the UK or anywhere else in the world available and reasonable to occupy.
Rough sleepers are defined for the purposes of rough sleeping counts and estimates 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’).
Our Strategy outlines the framework to inform the District Council’s approach to preventing homelessness, in all its forms, and to address the causes of homelessness. The effects of the COVID-19 pandemic are far reaching with financial hardship experienced by many, compounded by the emergent cost of living crisis. This strategy sets out the Council’s approach to continuing effective service delivery to meet the needs of those at risk of homelessness within the district and has been developed from the findings contained in the Review for Homelessness.
The Strategy’s key priorities are to:
- Improve access to early housing advice and homelessness prevention services;
- Take action to prevent and end rough sleeping in Wealden;
- Take action to establish greater local collaboration between services and partners.
This Strategy sets out how the Council will meet its priorities having regard to current legislation and available funding.
National Context
In 2018 the Government:
- Published the Rough Sleeping Strategy which sets out the government’s vision for halving rough sleeping by 2022 and ending it by 2027. With a detailed action plan setting out how this will be delivered.
- Created a new Rough Sleeping Team made up of rough sleeping and homelessness experts, drawn from, and funded by government departments and agencies with specialist knowledge across a wide range of areas from housing, mental health to addiction.
- Set aside additional funding, including for local authorities via successful bids to purchase or build new homes for rough sleepers.
In March 2020 as a result of the Covid pandemic the Government asked local authorities in England to bring “everyone in”, including those who would not normally be entitled to assistance under homelessness legislation. As a result, many rough sleepers who would not normally be entitled to accommodation were provided with assistance.
Also, in 2020 the Government announced the Rough Sleeping Accommodation Programme, which was backed by £435 million over the lifetime of the current parliament. This funding sought to support up to 6,000 rough sleepers into longer term accommodation through capital funding to build or purchase properties. In addition, revenue funding to support rough sleepers in their home including specialist staff to access the help they need, such as support for mental health and substance abuse problems, moving towards training and work.
Local strategic context
Wealden’s Corporate Plan 2023-27 recognises the need to help people who are likely to become homeless or are already homeless. (This plan is currently under review).
Our Housing Strategy 2020-25 aims to deliver more affordable homes, including smaller, one bedroomed homes. This contributes to alleviating the pressure on temporary accommodation and the housing register, particularly for single person households.
Our Cost of Living Strategy aims to ensure that that individuals have the financial help and skills they need, but also to support them during times of financial difficulties/emergencies. This strategy directly links with the Homelessness Strategy, as many households find themselves in housing difficulty as a result of financial and affordability issues.
As a result of the Government’s rough sleeping strategy, in East Sussex we have set-up multi-disciplinary teams to work with rough sleepers which are funded by a number of different successful bids to government funding streams. One example of this is the East Sussex Rough Sleepers Initiative (RSI). Partners include Adult Social Care, Local authority housing, substance misuse, mental health, probation and health. In addition, each local authority has been successful in bidding for revenue and capital funding to deliver supported, ‘Housing First’ units of accommodation for former rough sleepers.