Rough sleepers are to be encouraged to find work as part of a government strategy to cut street sleeping
Under a "new, braver approach" to preventing and tackling rough sleeping from the government, a range of schemes will be developed to provide "meaningful occupation" for rough sleepers as soon as they move off the streets.

The Rough Sleepers Unit's long-awaited strategy for cutting rough sleeping by two thirds by 2002 says this will cover "pre-vocational training" and rehabilitation tailored for those with alcohol, drug or mental health problems.

Creative writing, art and photography classes are being piloted in this year's winter shelters as part of this approach, the report, written by the unit's head, Louise Casey, says.

This is part of the plan aiming to produce "a continuum of care, so there is a clear route from the streets to a settled lifestyle" embracing a more interventionist approach in the centre of London, more bedspaces, and a joined-up approach to prevention and sustainable tenancies.

Housing associations and voluntary organisations will now be given the opportunity to bid to provide a range of proposed services, with a bidding document expected before Christmas.

The unit will set up a special project to look at the "difficult area" of soup runs, and a "wholly new approach to street work" will be taken, using "contact and assessment teams", which will build on the experience of a Thames Reach pilot project highlighted by Housing Today last month (Housing Today, 25 November). The strategy says: "They will be in the driving seat for managing the change to empty doorways."

Outside London, day centres will use the same approach to take responsibility for their areas.

Local authorities must address the key issue of "preventing homelessness whether or not it manifests itself as rough sleeping", the strategy says. And the unit will be targeting some of the 1,000 new housing association units to be built in London by 2002.

Source

Housing Today