Temporary funds for hostel providers announced as council delays new long-term approach to homelessness

Peterborough City Council (PCC) plans to draw up long-term contracts with housing companies providing hostels for homeless people were delayed by a year after “financial resilience work" and a "contracts review".

The new contracts, which would “facilitate more stability” and introduce “robust performance monitoring”, were originally intended to be awarded last year, but will now be awarded in 2023/4.

A PCC report explains that funds for housing related support in Cambridgeshire and Peterborough reduced in 2018 after the removal of ring-fenced funding.

However, after an increase in homelessness and cost-of-living pressures, the arrangements were reviewed again more recently.

As such, the council aims to introduce new long-term contracts, which it plans to do on 1 January 2024, but will allocate short-term funds in the meantime.

Just over half of the £800,000 allocated will be offered to the Longhurst Group which provides hostel accommodation for 97 people as well as drop-in services, while around £200,000 will be offered to the Cambridgeshire and Peterborough YMCA which provides accommodation for 104.

Cross Keys Homes, providing housing for 62, will be offered almost £68,000; Home Group, housing and supporting 14 homeless people with mental health problems, will be offered around £59,000 and Futures Housing Group, housing 26, will be offered almost £47,000.

The organisations are likely to be offered these sums between 16–22 May, the period in which PCC finance cabinet member Cllr Andy Coles (Conservatives, Fletton & Woodston) and housing cabinet member Cllr Marco Cereste (Conservatives, Hampton Vale) must decide whether to sign-off on this decision.

PCC says its current homelessness strategy is to focus on preventing homelessness, such as through the provision of hostels and “floating outreach support and drop-in services” for vulnerable people who may be at risk of homelessness.

The most recent available Government statistics show that, between July to September 2022, 153 people were deemed homeless in Peterborough after initial assessment, while 319 were deemed as threatened with homelessness.

The number of people assessed as homeless has remained relatively similar in the last few years (157 in July–September 2021; 150 in the same period in 2020 and 164 in 2019).

But the number of people at risk has increased since 2019 from 213 in 2019 to 319 in 2022.

Earlier this year, the Government also reported the first rise in rough sleeping since 2019.

The figures, which capture a “snapshot” of the picture across the country on a single night each year, suggest that rough sleeping increased by some 26 per cent between 2021 and 2022.

Since 2010, when this “snapshot” method of recording rough sleeping figures was introduced, the number has risen by 74 per cent.

As well as introducing its long-term contracts, PCC plans to approach the issue with a new supported accommodation panel, which meets fortnightly to review possible homelessness cases.

Next PCC proposes to “widen the scope of the panel” to include allocation decisions, moves between settings and moves to independent accommodation.