Priority 4: Rough sleeping
Our objectives
- To end rough sleeping in Dartford.
- To ensure that where rough sleeping cannot be prevented, it should be brief, rare, and non-recurring.
Rough sleeping is the most extreme and visible form of homelessness and a highly complex issue. The Government’s target is to end rough sleeping by the end of 2024. The ‘Ending Rough Sleeping for Good Strategy’ (September 2022) aims to drive forward this aim through enabling ‘Prevention, Intervention, Recovery and a Transparent and Joined up System’.
We echo the aspiration to end the need for anyone to sleep rough in Dartford and agree that where it cannot be prevented, it should be brief, rare and non-recurring.
In terms of the rough sleeping situation in Dartford, the homelessness review recognised that the levels of rough sleeping fell during the pandemic when additional accommodation was available through the ‘Everyone In’ initiative, which ran from March 2020 to March 2022. The Next Steps Accommodation Programme also aimed to assist rough sleepers into medium and longer term accommodation. In the last rough sleeping count in 2022, 4 people were sleeping rough, which is down from the 2021 figure of 6.
The Single Homeless Prevention Service is working well, providing outreach to rough sleepers and a weekly drop-in service. The multi-agency team, including partners from Porchlight and the Dartford Churches Homeless Project (New Avenues), work together to build relationships and deliver genuinely supportive and effective interventions to those that are rough sleeping. We are keen to also build closer working relationships with other agencies specialising in providing support and interventions for complex needs (for example, mental health support, drug and alcohol support, adult social care).
We also have a Severe Weather Emergency Protocol (SWEP), which sets out the accommodation arrangements we put into place to minimise harm or death to anyone who might be sleeping rough during periods of severe weather, which following a recent review, now includes the impact of all types of extreme weather including cold, rain, snow, wind and heat.
Whilst Dartford has seen a reduction in the numbers of people sleeping rough and we have services in place to help rough sleepers, there is still work to do to end rough sleeping for good. This is particularly the case in circumstances where an entrenched rough sleeper may be reluctant to engage and refuses to accept support. Meaningful engagement with long-term rough sleepers is challenging as staying focused on long-term goals of housing can be difficult when an individual is often living with multiple and complex issues in their daily lives. We will take a ‘never give up’ approach to individuals who are reluctant to work with us. We will be professionally curious and speak with agencies to establish previous links in order to scope for alternative agency support.
There are also challenges assisting rough sleepers who are non-UK nationals with restricted eligibility to housing support. Whilst partner support services provide much valued support to rough sleepers to work to resolve their immigration status, the local housing authority remit to assist in providing long-term housing options is restricted where an individual is ineligible under homelessness legislation. We take a proactive approach to contacting the Home Office and seeking resettlement options or options to stay in the UK via the Homelessness Escalations Service or the Voluntary Resettlement Schemes.
A lack of intensive supported housing is also limiting opportunities to prevent and relieve homelessness for rough sleepers. Our Temporary Accommodation Strategy sets out how we will work to move the current reactive rough sleeper support offer to a homelessness prevention offer by developing options for rapid access into privately rented accommodation and supported options for those with vulnerabilities and support needs.
How we will meet our objectives
Continue our commitment to holistic outreach work through the Single Homeless Prevention Service
We will take a ‘never give up’ approach to individuals who find it difficult to trust authority and are reluctant to engage. If we offer support and accommodation or a plan into accommodation to someone who does not take up the offer of support, we will continue to support them, at their pace to get to a position of trust so that we can work together to help them recover from homelessness. Taking a trauma informed approach to people who are scared to move on, and making people aware that Porchlight and the Dartford Churches Homeless Project (New Avenues) will support them with their meetings with us, will help to ease people’s reluctance to work with us.
Build closer working relationships with other agencies (for example, mental health support, drug and alcohol support, adult social care)
Strengthening these joint working relationships will help to deliver genuinely supportive interventions for people sleeping rough or at risk of rough sleeping.
Evaluate the extent of rough sleeping in Dartford by carrying out a rough sleeping count/estimate
These are single night snapshots of the number of people sleeping rough in the borough and an important measure for evaluating the extent of rough sleeping. Local intelligence gathered throughout the year is also imperative for understanding the rough sleeping situation in the borough.
Analyse data monthly based on our regular weekly outreach to monitor any changes in trends for reasons why people are sleeping rough
We provide the Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities with monthly information about the number of people sleeping rough. We will review the numbers of individuals and trends in homelessness in our weekly rough sleepers meeting. Going forward, we will analyse this data and measure how we shape our service in order to meet changing demands.
Review the Severe Weather Emergency Protocol for Rough Sleepers (SWEP)
The annual review of the SWEP will be carried out in consultation with our key stakeholder partner organisations working with rough sleepers to ensure we continue to effectively prevent the loss of life on the streets during periods of severe weather.
How we will measure success
We will measure successes through the monitoring of:
- Number and composition of rough sleepers
- Number of rough sleepers assisted under the Single Homeless Prevention Service
- Number of rough sleepers assisted under the SWEP
- Number of nights accommodated for each rough sleeper under the SWEP
- The cost of emergency accommodation per night for each rough sleeper under the SWEP
- Number of people who refuse accommodation