Council and democracy

Agenda item

Homelessness Prevention and Rough Sleeping Strategy - Action Plan

Minutes:

The report was presented by Ryan Farmer.

 

The Chair was pleased to see that the Council had delivered on its promise in regards to tackling homelessness and the funding that had been provided by national Government. He commented that the homelessness service had improved over the last few years but was concerned that too many people were still being placed outside the Borough and was concerned whether there was enough provision in the Borough.

 

Councillor Worrall questioned whether there were vacancies within the Homelessness Team. She said that she had been informed that people were struggling to make contact with Homelessness Officers and that she had tried calling the department herself where there had been no answer. She questioned who or what Jigsaw was. Ryan Farmer said that he did not manage the team but he was aware that there had been a number of posts over the past 12 months which had been created due to the funding from national Government. He was aware that the team was expanding and could not confirm if there were vacancies that the team needed to recover but there was good coverage within the team. He said that Jigsaw was the name of the case management system that tracked and progressed cases. He asked Councillor Worrall to pass the case details on to him so that he could pass this onto the Homelessness Team to look into.

 

Councillor Worrall said that she would pass these details on and went on to say that the Homelessness Team needed to follow through with their case work which had been discussed in reports at Committee last year. She said that since the pandemic, there had been support from charities such as Friends of Essex and London Homeless and that the service should consider speaking with charities such as It’s Nice to be Nice when engaging with stakeholders instead of consulting bigger organisations. She highlighted that this charity were made up of volunteers in the community to help people during the pandemic. Ryan Farmer said that it was important that the issue of homelessness was tackled in partnership with other organisations. He appreciated that the Council was made aware of other organisations and encouraged Members to continue to do so.

 

Councillor Redsell questioned whether there were any rough sleepers currently and if any of these were ex-servicemen. Ryan Farmer answered that he was not aware of any currently and said that 77 people had been helped in the past 12 months through the homelessness initiative. He was not aware of any that were ex-servicemen and would provide an update to Councillor Redsell.

 

Referring to paragraph 4.4, the Vice-Chair questioned whether individuals had been permanently or temporarily housed. Ryan Farmer answered that the figure was now 77 people in which 74 had been placed in emergency accommodation and that 37 of these had moved into permanent accommodation. Three people had been assisted by other organisations with some supported back to friends or family and people were generally supported to find somewhere more permanent to move into.

 

RESOLVED:

 

Housing Overview and Scrutiny Committee were asked to note and comment on the content of this report.

Supporting documents: