Wrexham gets Welsh Government funding boost to deliver support to rough sleepers

Wrexham Council is to receive more than £100,000 to deliver support to rough sleepers and to help them to move to longer term accommodation.

The funding features as part of more than £1.34 million announced by Welsh Government Minister for Housing and Local Government Julie James to help tackle rough sleeping in Wales this winter.

This includes £25,000 for every local authority in Wales to assist with winter pressures and deliver support to rough sleepers.

Wrexham has also been identified as one of four local authority areas with the most complex rough sleeping issues.

As a result Wrexham Council will receive a further £77,600 to develop a multi-agency model, with public sector and third sector organisations delivering joined up services to rough sleepers to encourage those people not currently engaging with services to access support to improve their health and quality of life and enable them to move to longer term accommodation.

A further £54,000 has also been allocated to the Community Care Collaborative to develop and deliver health and social care services to rough sleepers in Wrexham, alongside housing advice, welfare advice and a range of other services.

The multi-agency team brings together a range of organisations under one roof to provide support to Wrexham’s homeless community, including those suffering the effects of the synthetic cannabinoid drug Spice.

In November 2018 Wrexham.com reported that the collaborative had won a health award for its work in turning around the lives of homeless people in Wrexham.

“This funding is part of the £30m we are investing over this year and the next to tackle homelessness and rough sleeping,” explained Julie James.

“As the weather turns colder it is vital that the right support is available to ensure people can stay safe and warm this winter.

“We are working closely with local authorities and the third sector to ensure we are providing the right support to help people who are sleeping rough in Wales to leave the streets.

“People find themselves sleeping on the streets for a range of complex reasons, and they may require a great deal of support and understanding. We are committed to supporting them to find safe and secure housing, so they can achieve their full potential.

“I want to encourage anyone who is concerned about rough sleepers to use the Streetlink App, which will alert local authorities and outreach services who can then offer help.”

The Wallich have also updated their ‘rough sleeper’ figures for Wrexham, graphed below, with the organisation noting: “This data only refers the number of people who engage with our own Rough Sleepers’ Intervention Teams, rather than the Local Authority’s figures which represent data captured across all rough sleeper services – i.e. we track the number of people our RSITs make contact with.

“Although these numbers cannot be taken as an absolute figure for people sleeping rough on the streets in these areas, it can be seen as a minimum number and help to identify trends in rough sleeping over time.”

Wrexham.com also queried with Wrexham Council how often their ‘SWEP’, Severe Weather Emergency Protocol (SWEP) for Rough Sleepers , has come into force so far this winter period and as of last week we were told it has been activated four times, the first of which was in October. You can read the Council’s SWEP policy via this Word document: Policy Cold Weather Response (SWEP) for Rough Sleepers Version.