Delighted of Tunbridge wells

Almost half the applicants have lost their rented accommodation; a further third can no longer be supported by family or friends and the remainder are registered as street homeless in Tunbridge Wells. Many more sofa-surfers and other hidden homeless risk joining them. At the bottom of the heap are single homeless men: nine out of 10 of those people sleeping rough are male. More than two-thirds of households accepted for rehousing are families and young children, which leaves a lot of men on the street. This is where Moat Housing Group comes in.

Moat has been providing December-to-March winter shelters since 1994 and, six months ago, opened a permanent hostel on Colebrook Road in the High Brooms area of the town, after a prolonged fight to win over local opposition. The hostel gives single homeless people somewhere to go while forging strong links to the community.

Residents are allowed to stay for 13 weeks, during which time they are encouraged to look for work. Since June last year, 119 men and 47 women have been referred to Moat by the councils, local charities and action groups. Spread between the ages of 16 and 58, they were all previously homeless: 79 were sofa-surfing or living in unstable accommodation; 64 were on the street.

Roger Deeks, 52, was living in his car before he came to the hostel. "I was living with my mum and she married again," he says. "I didn't get on with my stepdad and I had nowhere to go. So I ended up sleeping in my car."

A builder by trade, Roger has found it difficult to get regular work around Tunbridge Wells. Sporadic jobs for a local building firm sometimes earn him less than £100 a fortnight, not enough to rent a flat.

While out of work, he pays £13 a week to stay at the hostel. However, the greater structure provided to his life since moving in has helped him apply for a job at the local B&Q. This will enable him to pay the £82.60 that Moat charges working residents. After his 13 weeks are up, he will move back into council accommodation, better able to manage his life.

Despite the local shortage of housing, the hostel faced fierce opposition when it was proposed. Tony Morgan, Moat's services manager, was charged with overcoming local distrust of the scheme. "We had to spend ages trying to convince the local residents that what we were doing would be a benefit, not a danger, to the community," he says.

Morgan's task was extra difficult because the residents of Colebrook Road had already fought a campaign to close down the scrapyard for used car parts that used to stand on the hostel site. "Because they'd already fought one campaign, they were able to unite against us when we submitted our planning application," he says. "I got shouted at quite a few times when I went round local houses to explain what we were doing. People were very frightened, especially about the risk of sex offenders. They simply had a fear of the unknown."

Morgan assiduously wrote to every resident in the area, explaining the importance of the project, the careful monitoring of hostel residents that would be done, the fact that they were not sex offenders, and Moat's enthusiasm for getting involved in local affairs. Apart from a few "disgusted of …" diehards, folk were won over and construction commenced.

In June 2002, three years after the initial application, the hostel opened its doors.

It is now fulfilling Moat's aim of a hostel integrated into the community.

Every three months, Morgan holds a community meeting to which he invites local councillors, schools, police, clergy and residents to air their views and concerns. Eight of the 12 current residents have had drug or alcohol problems and he is sensitive to any problems this may cause.

"We're not here to provide a warm place for those with alcohol problems to drink themselves into oblivion," Morgan says.

"If they do that, we throw them out." Yet only four people have been asked to leave since the hostel opened.

Morgan stresses the hostel's role in helping its residents help themselves. "A lot of them need help with basic skills, such as self-presentation and budgeting their money properly," he says. "When they master these, we can send them on to West Kent College – with whom we've built up strong links – where they can learn formal skills such as using computers."

The hostel is a large, three-storey design with a blue and yellow colour scheme: "Shrewsbury Town's colours", says Morgan proudly. "All of the buildings I have a hand in end up being blue and yellow." It cost £650,000, financed half by the Housing Corporation and half by the three district councils in the area. A large office on the ground floor contains details of current residents and acts as a control room for the centre. Public relations are handled by Leo, an affable Staffordshire bull terrier/Jack Russell cross, whose basket inhabits a corner of the office.

Upstairs, there are 13 single bedrooms, 12 of which are grouped in three groups of four, with the other at the top of the building for residents requiring more privacy. Each room has a bed and sinkand resemble a superior class of student accommodation, which is what architect John McCormack spends most of the rest of his time designing.

Downstairs is a large meeting room, which is periodically let out for community uses – the local Labour club often meets here – and kitchen facilities. It is estimated that the hostel will cost about £316,000 a year to run, also split half and half between the three local authorities and Moat.

Despite the success at Colebrook Road, Morgan is adamant that a longer-term solution for the issue of single homeless people requires more than a few hostels. "We're really just dealing with the problem," he says. "The solution is to stop people becoming homeless in the first place – having flexible tenure types and access to readily available accommodation. But this will only happen when the authorities recognise the need for more social housing."