Council drafts new homelessness strategy following spike in rough sleeping

The council is intent on eliminating rough sleeping in the borough

Islington Council has drafted a new action plan to support its unhoused residents, after it emerged that the number of rough sleepers in the borough had doubled in a year.

The strategy, put to the Homes and Communities scrutiny committee on Monday, laid out the steps the Town Hall is taking to help groups affected.

New priorities for the borough include tailored early intervention to prevent and relieve homelessness, settled housing to eliminate rough sleeping, and resettlement services for refugees and migrants.

Ian Swift, director of housing operations, told the committee the report contained “the residents’ voice[s] entwined with the action plan and the findings”.

“We’ve tried to get the strategy in a place that represents the values of Islington Council, but more importantly would help us to reduce homelessness and eliminate rough sleeping.”

Swift said the report came from conversations with people who had experienced homelessness.

He put the findings and the plan before the committee, which he noted had asked “at the beginning of the journey” to see the draft strategy before it was signed off by the executive.

“Now is the opportunity you asked for to make changes — by all means, challenge us.”

The report said that the council continued to support 750 single male asylum seekers housed in Home Office hotels in Islington.

Cllr Hannah McHugh (Labour, St Mary’s and St James’) praised the “really wonderful” document, and asked for more clarity on how exactly the borough had prevented people leaving asylum hotels from sleeping rough.

Swift said the council had employed people to talk to all individuals in Home Office hotels as part of its ‘upstream prevention work’, along with weekly surgeries.

Officers spoke to asylum seekers, explaining that they needed to liaise with the council before they received permission to stay in the country so that the local authority could prevent them becoming homeless.

He added that the council was also working with doctors and medical professionals on the same issue so they could properly grasp the Town Hall’s strategy.

“We don’t want people, as happens in other parts of London, to get that  status to remain but are unable to access the services they need, and end up sleeping rough on the streets of Islington. That’s not human.”

At Cllr McHugh’s request, Swift said he would add to the report the estimated cost savings from preventing homelessness and the subsequent need to re-house people further down the line.

The council’s ongoing work includes buying 410 properties “to house former rough sleepers, care experience young adults and settling Afghan and Ukrainian families and homeless households”.

It also plans to expand its Indepedent Housing Intensive Support (IHIS) scheme by the end of 2024, to provide an extra 20 homes for individuals who have experience sleeping rough.

The report noted that 54 per cent of Londoners “feel that housing affordability is the most important issue facing [the capital] today”.

Islington has an estimated overspend of £2.25m for 2024/25 on homelessnes, after a 35 per cent increase in demand for support in the first half of the year.

Swift said this figure was considerably lower than the London and the national average.