Team helping homeless praised by First Minister – Minister for North Wales intervenes in Christmas incident

First Minister Mark Drakeford has praised a team helping homeless people in Wrexham during a visit to the town, with the new Minister for North Wales citing an incident on Christmas Eve of ‘growing vilification’ of vulnerable people in society.

The Community Care Hub, which has benefited from Welsh Government funding, provides health and social care services to rough sleepers together with housing and welfare advice and a range of other services.

The hub was founded in 2016 by Wrexham GP Dr Karen Sankey, Dewi Richards, a mental health manager at Betsi Cadwaladr University Health Board and Tanya Jones from homeless charity The Wallich.

It holds weekly drop-in sessions with a number of organisations, including the health board, Department for Work and Pensions and Wrexham Council. The hub now supports more than 100 people who are homeless, sleeping rough or have mental health or substance misuse problems.

The First Minister commented: “As the weather turns colder it is vital the right support is available for people who are homeless and sleeping rough.

“We’ve recently announced £1.34m to tackle rough sleeping in Wales this winter, including £54,000 for the Community Care Hub, in Wrexham.

“The multi-agency approach here, with everyone available in one place to provide vital advice and support is exemplary. There are a number of complex reasons why people find themselves homeless and it is important they have the opportunity to access the right support at the right time – as they do here.

“I would like to thank all those involved in this project for their hard work and dedication.”

Dr Sankey said: “I am delighted with what the community care collaborative has achieved at the hub in partnership with AVOW and the Salvation Army, working with a wide range of voluntary and statutory sector partners.

“The hub is an innovative model of primary care offering an accessible, holistic, person-centred approach that meets the health and wellbeing needs of some of the most vulnerable people in our community.

“The success of the hub has attracted funding support from the Welsh Government, the Steve Morgan Foundation, the Waterloo Foundation and the Allen Lane Foundation, enabling the collaborative to employ care navigators – one of whom was a hub user in its early days.

“Working with the health board, we are exploring how the model could be replicated as an alternative model of primary care provision for the wider community.”

Major Roger Batt, Salvation Army Divisional Commander for NW England & North Wales: “I am so pleased that First Minister, Mark Drakeford has come along to Wrexham Salvation Army to see for himself what a vital service the care hub is providing to people experiencing homelessness in and around the town.

“The fact that visitors who may have primarily just dropped in to the church to get a hot meal and a change of clothes can also get to see a GP, go to the harm reduction surgery or get advice on benefits while they’re here is just brilliant.

“The care hub is really helping to reconnect people to the support they need to overcome homelessness and I am full of admiration for everyone involved in the partnership for making it such a success.”

We asked the First Minster and the new Minister for North Wales what ‘more’ can be done for the homeless on top of the existing services and funding.

The First Minister Mark Drakeford spoke about putting the issue ‘front and centre’ of government, and how he has seen more people come through his door when holding surgeries than anything else.

Speaking of his experiences of the hub in Wrexham he appeared to have directly taken the feedback from an individual who had pointed out to him ‘I have done more this one morning in seeing people than I would have in two months if I tried to trail around the system going to all of these people individually’.

The Minister for North Wales, Ken Skates AM, explained how he was worried over the ‘growing vilification’ of homeless people. Mr Skates explained how in Wrexham town centre on Christmas Eve he saw such social tensions with a woman selling the Big Issue being ‘verbally abused’ and intervened.

You can hear their full responses in the below video: