Kentish Gazette Canterbury & District
Homeless making best of hotel deal
When 57 rough sleepers were housed in a Travelodge at the start of lockdown, city council bosses claimed the move would help “resolve their homelessness once and for all”.
And while some have been evicted for breaking the rules others have grasped the opportunity to improve their prospects.
New statistics from the local authority show that since it struck the £163,000-deal with the budget hotel chain, five people have already been placed in long-term accommodation. Two more have received offers for housing, four now have jobs, 20 are receiving drug and alcohol support, and eight have reconnected with family and old friends from the area they originated from.
But others have struggled to adjust to life indoors, with several having been forced to leave the hotel for a variety of reasons, including smoking in their rooms and fighting. Terry Gore, the director of Canterbury homelessness charity Catching Lives, said: “With us, the council and Porchlight, we’ve done a fairly good job.
“Lockdown could end sometime within the next few weeks, and we don’t want to be in a position where we’re having to dump people wholesale back onto the streets.
“I know of at least eight or nine clients who have been asked to leave the hotel. When you’re taking people off the streets and warehousing them in a hotel, there are always likely to be issues.
“We’ve had people smoking in their rooms and covering smoke alarms with socks. There has been the odd issue with fights and aggression.”
The rough sleepers from the Canterbury and Dover districts were provided accommodation at the Travelodge towards the end of March in a bid to protect them from coronavirus. But Mr Gore says about 20 people remain on the city’s streets and that efforts are continuing to deliver them food and find them suitable housing. This comes as the local authority admits that one of its most pressing issues is a lack of available accommodation for Canterbury’s
homeless. Spokesman Rob Davies said: “We have had good success so far in a variety of ways with several of the individuals at the Travelodge.
“There is always more to do. Our aim is that nobody returns to the streets at the end of this. “Sadly, though, we can provide no such guarantee, because if someone turns down the support that is available, we cannot force them to access it. “We would urge any accommodation owners interested in working with us to provide places for people to live to come forward. A lack of accommodation is one of the biggest issues we face.”
Between July 2018 and the start of this year, the city council has managed to move 198 rough sleepers off the streets and into permanent accommodation.
And Mr Davies says that by housing them in the hotel it has been able to “intensify efforts” to support the district’s homeless population.
“We’re encouraged by the fact that while we are taking a proactive approach to working with clients, the clients themselves are also actively talking to us about their next steps,” Mr Davies added.
“People should be in no doubt, however, about the complexity of this work. It is not as simple as finding a property somewhere and placing someone in it. “Very often there are concerns about physical or mental health that need to be treated, or support that is required to tackle substance abuse. This can take many weeks of intensive work.”