Agenda and minutes

Venue: Council Chamber, Council Offices, Cecil Street, Margate, Kent. View directions

Items
No. Item

14.

Apologies for Absence

Apologies were received from Councillor M. Saunders.

Minutes:

Apologies were received from Cllr Hayton and Cllr M. Saunders who was substituted by Cllr K. Coleman-Cooke.  

15.

Declaration of Interests

To receive any declarations of interest. Members are advised to consider the advice contained within the Declaration of Interest form attached at the back of this agenda. If a Member declares an interest, they should complete that form and hand it to the officer clerking the meeting and then take the prescribed course of action.

Minutes:

There were no declarations of interest.

16.

Minutes of previous meeting pdf icon PDF 32 KB

To approve the Minutes of the Community Safety Partnership Working Party meeting held on 06 February 2017, copy attached.

Minutes:

Councillor Campbell proposed, Councillor Martin seconded and Members agreed the minutes as a correct record of the meeting held on 6 February 2017.  

17.

Rough Sleeping in Thanet - issues relating to homelessness and antisocial behaviour pdf icon PDF 41 KB

Minutes:

Victoria May, Housing Options Manager gave a presentation on rough sleeping in Thanet and issues relating to homelessness and anti-social behaviour. The power point slides being attached at Annex 1 to this minute item.

 

Mrs May made the following points:

 

·  The Housing Options Team took 881 homeless applications in 2016, 570 of which were from single people, of which 386 were from men and 184 from women. The Council accepted a full homeless duty to 85 people.

·  There were an estimated 33 rough sleepers in Thanet.

·  Rough sleepers could be difficult to engage with as they often had multiple complex needs such as drug or alcohol misuse, criminality and mental health issues amongst others.

·  The Thanet Winter shelter project had been a great success; it opened on 1 December and ran through to the 28 February. Eighty-six referrals were made, 42 people took up the option to stay. The Housing Service would be supporting this for Winter 2017/18.

·  The homeless aspire project was a successful engagement initiative aimed at households rough sleeping and had complemented the Winter Shelter well. The objective was to provide progression pathways to rough sleepers including; Education and Training, Gateway and Housing and Health and Wellbeing amongst others.

·  The Council had been involved with a number of successful bids for funding including; a £400K grant for a Rapid Response Service in partnership with Dover and Shepway Councils and a £1.5m grant to KCC to a fund Social Impact Bond, covering Thanet, Dover, Shepway and Canterbury.

·  The Homelessness Reduction Bill would change the meaning of homelessness and introduce a new duty to provide advisory services. Personal Prevention Plans would be introduced for each individual.

·  The future was exciting, but challenging, however the Council was prepared for it as they had a dedicated positive housing options team.

 

In response to the presentation Members made the following points:

 

·  How did the Housing Options team prioritise people?

·  What was the definition of homelessness?

·  Could the working party have more information on the Social Impact bond?

·  Could KCC move some of the £1.5m grant for the Social Impact Bond if the monies were not spent?

·  Would the Rapid Response Service help people Councillors met on the street?

·  Many of the homeless people who Councillors met only needed a small amount of help in order to help themselves out of homelessness. Also many homeless people had dogs and did not receive or were not eligible for help.

·  How did the Council deal with young homeless people, could the Council use warden assisted HMO’s for young people?

·  Did Thanet have issues with rough sleepers that frequented Thanet during the summer months?

·  It seemed that TDC are offering a gold plated service, what procedures were in place to prevent other authorities outside of East Kent directing their homeless cases to Thanet to access better services?

·  Was there any information available on hostels available in the Thanet area?

 

Mrs May and Bob Porter, Head of Housing made the following points in response to those raised  ...  view the full minutes text for item 17.