The proposals were developed in consultation with the local community, prioritising feedback from rough sleepers at the group's weekly Love Kitchen. Love Activists hope to gather 1250 signatures to force the council to debate the proposals at a full council meeting.
Reasoning/Rationale:
1. In May, the Supreme Court ruled that when local authorities make vulnerability assessments, a 'homeless person' should be compared with an 'ordinary person who is at risk of becoming homeless'. There is no doubt that any homeless person is 'significantly more vulnerable' than an ordinary person, therefore everybody living on the street should be assessed as being in priority need.
The judgement also made it clear that while councils are often under huge financial strain, this must not be used as an excuse for avoiding their legal duties. To guarantee duty of care and legal obligations are met, all local authorities must provide permanent housing for anybody living on the streets.
2. Housing first pilot project had a 70% success rate in Brighton & Hove - helping 7 out of 10 people with high support needs into accommodation.
3. Extended winter provision: additional services provided over a period of time e.g. every night from November to March.
If the material resources exist to provide shelter from a severe weather emergency, economic arguments against keeping the shelters open are not as powerful as the humanitarian ones for opening them.
(Copy & pasted from 'Homeless Link')
Humanitarian Response: SWEP should be applied responsibly to prevent death at all times; 3 consecutive nights at zero or below is the minimum requirement. Local authorities should consider factors such as wet weather and wind chill, snow coverage and duration of extreme weather when looking at provision. Preventing deaths on the streets is the aim of the protocol, so if this demands more beds and a longer response the local authority should do everything it can to prevent harm to individuals.
Economics cannot change the weather any more than economics can determine people's relative vulnerability to each other.
4. It doesn't have to be severely wet to have a severe impact if you're sleeping on the streets. Severely windy, wet weather is an emergency, as is extremely hot, dry weather.
Homeless Link offers advice and guidance to BHT, St Mungo's and Brighton & Hove City Council. Currently their minimum definition of severe weather is when the temperature drops below zero for three consecutive nights.
(Copy & pasted from 'Homeless Link')
There is no strict definition of what counts as ‘severe weather’. Local authorities should proactively identify any weather that could increase the risk of serious harm to people sleeping rough and put measures in place to minimise this. This includes extreme cold, wind and rain. It is important not to presume when, or in what form, severe weather will occur.
Sleeping rough is never comfortable, but the suffering is exacerbated by all elements It doesn't have to be severely wet to have a severe impact if you're sleeping on the streets.
('Homeless Link')
http://www.homeless.org.uk/sites/default/files/site-attachments/Winter%20provision%20guidance%202015-16.pdf
5. If this doesn't happen there will be no truly affordable places to live and more people will inevitably become homeless.
6. This would make use of empty properties, keep people safe and avoid waste of tax payers money, private money and time spent on security, policing and court costs.
(Copy & pasted from 'Homeless Link')
In addition to the direct risk associated with severe weather, local authorities should work alongside other local statutory and voluntary services to identify and mitigate actions taken during severe weather that can increase risk for those sleeping rough. For example, people may choose to sleep in riskier places, such as in bins, where they can find cover. They may also enter buildings or property illegally, or increase their substance use as a coping mechanism.
7. No single authority can successfully move to implement all of these measures, because if they 'move first', their service capacity would risk being overwhelmed by people migrating to that local authority. Therefore, we must work towards implementing these measures nationally.
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