The purpose of World Homeless Day is to draw attention to homeless people’s needs locally and provide opportunities for the community to get involved in responding to homelessness, while taking advantage of the stage an ‘international day’ provides.
Closer to home at Barnet Homes, being a social landlord means we are always looking at ways to reduce homelessness/rough sleeping in the borough.
Recently our Housing Options service launched the Homelessness Forum, a multi-agency task group made up of organisations with a shared interest in tackling local homelessness including Barnet Council, Homeless Action in Barnet (HAB), Homeless Link and Shelter.
We’ve also had great success with our award-winning Rough Sleepers Team. Recently they came across a rough sleeper sleeping outside a commercial building in Hendon Central who at first, refused any help.
The Rough Sleepers Team never gave up on him and continued to visit him each time they went out on their weekly rough sleeper count. Eventually after a couple of weeks, he began to engage with the team and accepted help from Social Services due to his mental health. This man now resides in a care home and he is getting his life back on track.
Some recent Barnet Homes homeless prevention targets
- August 2019 the team beat the target of 96 and recorded 116 preventions
- August 2019 Private Sector Rented placements via Let2Barnet 69 placements (target 52)
As the autumn season moves into winter and temperatures drop, Barnet Homes will put its Severe Weather Protocol into action. Accommodation is available to all rough sleepers while the temperatures remain below zero.
If you’ve seen someone sleeping rough, you can send an alert to StreetLink via the StreetLink app or via http://streetlink.org.uk. This service will alert the StreetLink outreach team for the rough sleeper to get the support they need.