Funding of £2.7 million to tackle homelessness in Norfolk has been welcomed by councils and charities - but both warned the problem needed more than money.
The money comes from the Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities (DLUHC) and will be split up between Norfolk's seven districts, with the amounts determined by local need.
Norwich City Council’s cabinet member for rough sleeping said more support for other services would help prevent people from becoming homeless in the first place, while Paula Hall of west Norfolk’s Purfleet Trust said there remained a need to look beyond a “one-size-fits-all” approach when seeking to break the cycle of homelessness.
About 23% of the £2,716,406 allocated to Norfolk will go to Norwich.
From April to June of this year, some 395 people in the city were deemed to be homeless and eligible for assistance, while a further 313 people experienced the threat of being homeless within 56 days - and, in 2020, some 21 rough sleepers were recorded.
Councillor Cate Oliver, the city council’s cabinet member for rough sleeping, said the authority was “delighted” by the funding and “will use it to good effect”.
Previous funding for the county under DLUHC's Homeless Prevention Grant have been used to help the council recruit specialist staff to work in areas such as domestic abuse, tenancy rights, the private rented sector, temporary accommodation and ex-offenders.
The fund has also been previously used to enable more flexible spending to address the city’s most urgent needs when and where they crop up.
Ms Oliver, a Labour councillor, added: “Homelessness often isn’t simply having nowhere to live, and I look forward to the day when our other vital services are properly resourced so that people can get the help they need, not only to break the cycle of homelessness but to tackle those very serious problems that led them there in the first place.
“There is always more work to be done to assist those who are homeless or insecurely housed, or at risk of being so.
“Naturally, these aspirations would be helped by guaranteed longer-term financial support, which would assist in our strategic planning.”
The second-largest amount, some £479,587 was allocated to west Norfolk, which was in April to June reported to have 214 homeless people and a further 96 threatened with homeless.
The borough reported a total of 11 rough sleepers in 2020, but Paula Hall, chief executive of the Purfleet Trust - a charity working closely with the council to help single homeless people - said there were no rough sleepers in west Norfolk on Wednesday December 22.
Though she cautioned that this was only a snapshot on one particular day, she said the charity had been managing to ensure that people presenting as homeless were helped into safe accommodation.
“Since the outbreak of Covid, we’ve been focusing our work on getting everybody off the streets and into good standard accommodation, which is suitable to individual needs - because that helps to create sustainability,” she said.
“If people are put in the appropriate accommodation for their needs, they’re more likely to remain there.”
She added that her charity would be continuing to work closely with the borough in the coming year, and that some of the fund could potentially be used to furnish accommodation.
“The borough will provide the accommodation and they will provide us with a contribution towards furniture and household items, so that we can help create a home for the individuals, so that people aren’t moving into empty accommodation,” she said.
“What we’d identified is that people were abandoning some properties, because they just felt really isolated.
“A couple of people have said that when they move into accommodation and there isn’t anything in there, they feel really vulnerable and it causes them to feel depressed, and it reinforces the fact they have nothing.”
Some £401,638 of the incoming fund was meanwhile allocated to Great Yarmouth, with smaller amounts to be directed towards Breckland (£372,975), North Norfolk (£317,009), Broadland (£302,468) and South Norfolk (£229,037).
Councillor Wendy Fredericks, North Norfolk District Council’s portfolio holder for housing and benefits, said the authority - which from April to June reported 188 homeless people and 91 people threatened with homelessness - was pleased to have received the funds, which will be put into their existing strategies to tackle the problem.
Ms Fredericks, a Liberal Democrat, added that “specific areas” for the fund “to target will be made in consultation with officers and members following consideration of all of the options in the New Year.”
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