Extra help for rough sleepers with drug and alcohol dependency

Rough sleepers across England will receive extra support to help them recover from drug and alcohol misuse, ministers have announced.

More than 40 areas will receive funds from a £23m pot designed to assist people addictions to access treatment to ditch their habits. The programme will be boosted by a further £52 million in 2021/22, the Ministry of Housing  said.

The announcement came as Labour leader Keir Starmer warned of a looming homelessness crisis this Christmas and urged Boris Johnston to keep to his pledge to end rough sleeping.

In a letter to the prime minister, the Labour leader urged the government to work with councils and mayors to ensure rough sleepers have access to Covid-secure winter shelter, warning that the country is at "the tip of an iceberg" of poverty and destitution after the coronavirus pandemic.

The new funding, which is being issued in partnership with the Department for Health and Social Care and managed by Public Health England, will enable those without a roof over their heads to access drug and alcohol treatment, including detox and rehabilitation services.

People who were homeless but are being provided with emergency accommodation during the Covid crisis as part of the government's Everyone In programme will be eligible for support, along with people who are currently sleeping on the country's streets.

Kelly Tolhurst, minister for rough sleeping and housing, said: “This funding will provide thousands of vulnerable people with the support they need to get on the road to recovery to rebuild their lives away from the streets for good.”  

Over the past year alone, 61 per cent of those sleeping rough in London said they needed help with addiction problems, with 39 per cent reporting alcohol misuse and the same proportion reporting drug problems, according to government figures.

Research from the Joseph Rowntree Foundation recently found destitution had increased by 54 per cent between 2017 to 2019, with 2.4 million adults and 500,000 children affected.

“Rough sleeping is a crisis which you pledged to end for good. But it is just the tip of an iceberg – the sharp end of a broken housing system and a society with gaping holes in its safety net. Many more people, many of them families with children, will experience homelessness, poverty and destitution this winter”, Sir Keir said.

The Labour leader said Covid-19 restrictions across the UK had resulted in thousands of rough sleepers missing out on life-saving shelter this winter.

He added: “The community action we have seen during this pandemic, and the huge support for Marcus Rashford’s campaign on free school meals, has shown the empathy of the British public.

“However, we have to ask why so many people are in such need in the first place."

Labour’s rough sleeping campaign is also demanding the government should not discriminate when helping people and that young people, those fleeing domestic abuse and LGBT+ homeless people, should have access to specialist treatment.

It also highlighted the government had pledged in its manifesto to end rough sleeping for good and called on ministers to stick to his commitment.

Meanwhile, frontline charities have told Labour that rough sleepers are facing their worst winter yet. In one case, due to a shortage of beds this year, around 6,500 homeless sleepers are at risk of being turned away.

In addition, charities are struggling with less than half of the usual number of volunteers this year due to the pandemic while the government’s threats to deport foreign nationals who are rough sleeping is feared to mean some are less likely to seek or accept assistance.