Rough sleeper numbers treble in one year in Southampton
It's after Government support put in place during the pandemic was scaled back
The number of rough sleepers in Southampton on one night has trebled in a year, it has been revealed.
The finding, which compares the 2021 figure of nine and the 2022 figure of 27, has come out of a report for Southampton City Council’s new homelessness strategy.
The dramatic rise could be down to the Government’s rough sleeper scheme during the pandemic, which provided people with a place to stay during the height of Covid.
Regardless, the figure of 27 is still a significant increase on the 10-year average between 2010 and 2022 of 20.
The statistic is based on a rough sleeper count on a single night of the year.
Another tool used to monitor rough sleeper rates is the monthly count, which in 2022, floated around the 80 mark.
Homelessness in Southampton, which refers to people who may not be sleeping rough but who do not have a fixed address, was 10.4 for every 1,000 households in 2021/2022 – far higher than the national level of 6.1.
The report lists reasons why the city’s levels are comparatively worse than the UK average.
It said Southampton is the 55th most deprived out of the 317 local authorities in England, as of 2019, and there is a shortage of accessible housing due to a ‘lack of space’ to build.
There is also said to be a large number of people living with alcohol addiction at 5,355 and with heroin and/or crack addiction at 1,200.
The city council’s new strategy, expected to be adopted by cabinet on December 19th (2023), will run from 2024 up until 2029 and will be the backbone of the authority’s efforts to tackle the issue.
It has four priorities.
The first is prevention. To ‘move beyond a reactive response and focus on reducing individual and population-wide risks of homelessness across the city’.
The council wants to achieve this by having a ‘more integrated system’ and to help households at risk of homelessness ‘at the earliest point possible’.
The second priority is intervention. The council said it will be ‘providing timely, appropriate and effective interventions to alleviate homelessness and help those sleeping rough’.
This will be done by creating a better way into temporary accommodation and an ‘easy way’ for people to receive advice, the document said.
The third priority is working together where the council said it will be ‘combining skills, resources, and experience to improve homelessness solutions and outcomes’. It said it wants to build strong partnerships and develop a better team to help people stop being evicted and offer help if they are.
The fourth priority is housing solutions, with the strategy saying how the council will be ‘exploring new and innovative ways to diversify our accommodation and support options in the city’.
It said this will be achieved by prioritising those most in need and by improving housing options – which will, in turn, save money on temporary accommodation.
The ultimate aim is to build a city where ‘everybody has a place to call home’.