According to Nottingham City Council’s homelessness strategy, 739 different people were found sleeping rough in the city last year, while the annual street count shows at least 50 people have been found sleeping rough on average each night.
Under the strategy, the Labour-led authority aims to reduce the number of rough sleepers identified in monthly counts to single figures by 2028.
Residents, workers and visitors may have seen people’s encampments in shopfronts across the city.
Cllr Jay Hayes, Executive Member for Housing at the council, says that the perception the authority is not doing anything to help individuals is “difficult to challenge”.
He said the situation would improve, with 133 people having been helped into secure accommodation between April 2024 and October this year.
“It is a difficult perception and difficult to challenge,” he said.
“What we are seeing is that not all of the people around the city, are genuine rough sleepers.
“Many of them are beggars and do have places to go.
“I think the issue is that you’ll have one person who is a genuine rough sleeper, but their friends want to stay out on the streets with them despite having places to go. That’s what we are trying to overcome.
“We are working with businesses, but we also need to continue to work with the healthcare services to bring them in, to encourage these people to move on from rough sleeping and into long-term accommodation.
“It is always that challenge of trying to be respectful to that person who is going through a very difficult time in their own way, and they have very complex needs, but it is also ensuring we can help the businesses alongside that. It is complicated, but there is work going on.”
In October, the council was given an extra £2.5 million towards homelessness, including a boost to its rough sleeping prevention and recovery grant, and additional money to support children experiencing homelessness.
The money is being used to employ a number of specialists, including those who assist prison leavers in finding accommodation before they are released.
“Under the last Government, councils weren’t notified when people were leaving, and then they would just turn up at Loxley House with their discharge papers saying they needed somewhere to go,” Cllr Hayes added.
“What we’ve been able to do with these specialists is go into the prisons and start those assessments before they come out.
“Things are getting better and will get better. We are seeing a tide turning with accommodation across the city. A lot of houses that were previously student housing – those landlords are coming back to us saying they want to use those properties to house people. We’re getting more housing online.
“We’ve had uplifts in our funding from Government. We’ve seen more money to support those rough sleepers – to do more early-intervention work. I think the big challenge is around addiction and mental health with rough sleepers.
“Because of those challenges and their experiences, they just don’t trust the services sometimes. It is about ensuring we can encourage rough sleepers to take the help on offer.”
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