Homeless at hotels during lockdown ‘difficult to manage’

HOMELESS people put up in two hotels in Cardiff during the coronavirus lockdown have been “exceptionally difficult to manage”.

The OYO hotel in Riverside and the YHA hotel on East Tyndall Street were block booked at the start of the lockdown and put up 140 homeless people in the first three weeks.

Shipping containers also housed homeless people self-isolating with symptoms, at Greenfarm Hostel in Ely and Cargo House in Butetown.

How Cardiff council helped homeless people during lockdown – and how much that help has cost – was revealed in a report to cabinet by Chris Lee, corporate director of resources.

The two hotels cost £917,287 to block book. .

However, Mr Lee said many people staying in the hotels “grew increasingly desperate” as they were unable to beg during lockdown so had less money to buy drugs. This made the hotels “exceptionally difficult to manage”, needing staff and security on site 24 hours a day. The council had to redeploy staff from elsewhere and employ a “significant number” of relief staff.

But as no insurer would provide public liability insurance, the council was underwriting the risk.

Mr Lee said: “Issues have arisen with the insurance for these schemes. While building insurance and employee liability insurance is in place, it has not been possible to secure public liability insurance. The council is therefore underwriting this liability.”

He later clarified that the council’s insurers have now agreed to provide “limited” cover for the risk of injuries.

The shipping containers in Ely and Butetown have cost the council £153,662 and can hold 20 people with symptoms.

Mr Lee said: “To date, the spread of the virus among the homeless community has been very limited, in part due to the availability of these units.”

However, staff and security have to be at the Cargo House site 24 hours a day because of people there “with more complex needs and chaotic behaviours”.

Mr Lee said: “The service has had problems sourcing and retaining security personnel to work across the different sites. The initial firm appointed from the council’s supplier list withdrew their services from mid-April. Another firm on the list was approached but was unable to help.”

The council did manage to get a cheaper security firm, costing about £60,000 each month.