"We have long-term homeless people now in their own flats, building a different life for themselves."

Friday, 25 February 2022 08:25

By Greg Lambert @greglam72

A councillor says she is proud of a scheme to give homeless people somewhere to live in the Lancaster district.

Councillor Cary Matthews said that every homeless person that Lancaster City Council has helped is now living in supported accommodation, apart from four who "are rough sleeping by choice".

Councillor Matthews was speaking to Beyond Radio about some of the work Lancaster City Council is doing to help the homeless.

"To put it into perspective, we currently have four individuals who are rough sleeping," she said.

"That is out of choice. Those individuals have been offered accommodation. Their choice is to sleep outside. That's in the district as a whole.

"In terms of night accommodation, we have an emergency 24/7 service at the council, If anybody thinks anyone is homeless during the night, there is a number to call for an immediate response from our team. We have facilities where we can accommodate people overnight, immediately, until a permanent solution can be found.

"I'm really proud to say that during Covid that all of the homeless people we did bring in, apart from the four who have chosen to go back into the street life they prefer, all are remaining supported in a tenancy."

Listen to Councillor Cary Matthews talking about the council's homelessness initiatives:

Councillor Matthews also said the council is working with Christ Church in Lancaster to help them "meet the standards they need to meet, in order to provide a service" for homeless people.

This comes after the Christ Church homeless shelter, which offered people a place to stay at night, was forced to close.

See here for our story on the closure of the night-time shelter.

"We've put a place a lot during Covid, lots of different initiatives," said Councillor Matthews, who is the cabinet member with responsibility for housing.

"The one thing homeless people struggle with is maintaining tenancies and discipline. What we've been able to do is put real support around (them). We have long-term homeless people now in their own flats with support, building a different life for themselves.

"We hold a homeless advisory group and homelessness forum. We share ideas, we facilitate that, we've developed strong partnerships to meet the needs locally."

Councillor Matthews (pictured left) also spoke about the Street Aid scheme, set up alongside Lancaster BID, which encourages people to donate to a pot of money to help homeless people.

"Lancaster people are very very generous with giving, and this is a way of giving to something where the money directly goes to homeless people.

"We're nearly at the £5000 mark, which is tremendous. This means we can support the people with the tenancies, buy carpets, washing machine... one gentleman for mental health purposes wanted to get back into Ju Jitsu so we're going to use some of the money to pay for his classes."

If you know of and are worried about someone who is homeless and sleeping on the streets, you can call the Lancaster City Council helpline on 01524 582257 (office hours) or 01524 67099 (out of office/weekends).

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