Minutes:
D Hall provided an overview of the measures taken in relation to Everybody’s In Initiative in response to Covid 19.
Since the last time that the Task Group had met, there had been unprecedented times because of the pandemic, and the response to it brought about a change in the way in which homelessness and particularly rough sleeping was dealt with in our community.
He paid tribute to the response to the pandemic from the Housing Team and other parts of the Council to Everybody’s In which was brought in by Government, which had been extraordinary and their efforts should not be unrecognised. The effort to bring everyone in from the Night Shelter and other people who were known to the sofa surfing or rough sleeping to a community centre which overnight was transformed into temporary accommodation, a vacant building which was turned into accommodation, to the security, cleansing services which were procured overnight, bedding, food and access to support was completely unprecedented and saw people working overnight and weekends, which was a huge effort.
The Council had worked closely with partners including the Purfleet Trust and their response was also extraordinary and humbling with problems being resolved. The effort resulted in everyone, including the hardest people to help, with a housing solution and no-one left on the street. Lots of buildings were used and converted into accommodation and the Council procured some welfare cabins which had been remodelled to allow people to live in them. Because of that huge effort, a positive outcome was achieved for some of those people. The feedback had been that for a lot of people who had been difficult to reach and engage with, there had been some success stories through a degree of stability and had taken the first steps to change their life around and to get some more secure accommodation.
The Chair added that the team should be very proud of all their efforts.
Nikki Patton added that Council had been working closely with the Night Shelter and had taken it over that week due to Covid-19 and the number of volunteers who were shielding.
The Council also received the letter at the end of March from Dame Louise Casey that all dormitory style accommodation needed to be closed. The Night Shelter was dormitory style accommodation.
Staff worked closely with the Purfleet Trust and the Night Shelter over that weekend, to find suitable accommodation. It resulted in a mix of accommodation with some hotels providing a limited amount of rooms. The Council used one of its community centres and turned the meeting rooms into self-contained accommodation. In addition, one of the Council’s hostels, which had been closed for refurbishment, was also used for accommodation and staff had worked closely with Broadland Housing to do that. All 23 people from the night shelter was moved into the accommodation. Througout that period 3 meals a day were provided and during that time close working was held with Purfleet Trust who provided that support into all the accommodation that was being used so everyone had visits from support staff.
As Covid took hold, it became apparent that some of the people were in the critically vulnerable health groups and some of the accommodation allowed people to still sharing bathrooms, a decision was made to consolidate accommodation and everyone was moved across to Travel Lodgeat the end of April / early May and therefore overcome the iseeeveryone had their own bathroom facilities. The support model was transferred across with Purfleet, who provided support 7-days a week. In addition, security staff was provided on a 24 hour basis. That came to an end on 30 June 2020. Since then the Council had continued to work with Freebridge and with Broadland to provide further accommodation. At the moment, we have interm solutions where we are using properties provided by Freebridge as shared acomodatin with ongoing support provided dby Purfleet. There was also the outreach service that theBorough Council had commissioned and running for some time. This would also provide inreach support for those people in accommodation.
In addition, people who had higher support needs, had been provided with accommodation within the existing hostel so that they had 24 hour support.
At the moment everyone had been accommodated in the Travel Lodge in this wider accommodation and the next steps would be to look at the medium to longer term needs and to have sustainable options for those people that had now been accommodated. Work would continue with the support provideers to ensure that not only were they accommodated but they also received the appropriate support that they required to maintain their accommodation.
Councillor Mrs Collop stated that the situation was that traditionally emergency accommodation had always been in dormitory style, mainly EDAB’s at merchant terrace and due to the increased level of homelessness had created the need for the night shelter, which was also dormitory style accommodation, which had recently moved to new premises to the vicarage along Blackfriars Road. As given by Government legislation these shared room dormitories were considered unsafe and did not comply with social distancing measures so their future use was currently questionable at least for the foreseeable.
Great steps had been taken over the last 3 months to ensure that nearly all vulnerable people have had temporary accommodation. Obviously there were going to be people that slip through the net because there are difficult issues which make it more challenging to offer support and housing.
However how has it become possible that in the space of one week, after the temporary hotel accommodation has ceased, that there is no offer of emergency accommodation and vulnerable people have been turned away and told to stay on the streets for the weekend. Just because partner organisations have worked really hard to accommodate people does not negate that there will always be new people who are in crisis and needs immediate support.
What measures are going to be taken to secure that much needed response support when it is normal practice is considered unsafe, and why have these measures not been put into place right now as people who are on the verge of suicide may not be able to last the weekend until the Council opened on Monday.
The Assistant Director advised that he could not comment on what may have ad happened at the weekend and individual circukstances but there are and will continue to be offers of accommodation to people who need emergency accommodation. Where possible this will be self-contained accommodation with appropriate support where required. Occasionally this is not possible and a hotel B&B bed space is used in the short term. There are existing well established out of hours arrangements.
On the matter of dormitory style provision – Night shelter and Emergency Direct Access Beds the current advice is that these are likely to be inappropriate for public health reasons for the foreseeable future and this coming winter. Discussions are on-going between the Council / the Winter Night shelter charity and the Ministry for Communities and Local Government directly regarding the operation of a Night shelter. There is a risk that this sort of accommodation will not be available, and that alternative arrangements need to be considered.
In relation to the issue that of some people who had had hotel accommodation and asked to leave and are subsequently rough sleeping, the Council would do everything they could but if they had been threatening it was not possible to keep then there it did not mean that the Council would give up on them – the Council would try and get them to engage and look at other options but through the outreach team would continue to work with them.
The Assistant Director confirmed that we would provide an email response to Councillor Mrs Collop.