10 signatures reached
To: Leeds City Council
Petition to improve the quality of Hostel style accommodation in Leeds
Improve the quality of the hostel style accommodation provided in Leeds city centre, it has been reported that many people would rather continue sleeping on the streets than spend a night in a hostel. In order for the number of people sleeping rough to be reduced the quality needs to be drastically improved.
Why is this important?
The number of people sleeping rough is increasingly becoming a national issue in the UK with figures rising for the seventh year from 1, 768 in 2010 to 4,751 in 2016.
Leeds has also seen an increase in those sleeping rough with numbers increasing from 13 people in 2015 to 28 in 2017. Now this may not seem like this many but 28 people sleeping on the streets is still 28 people with nowhere to live, no access to electricity, clean water or food. Walking around Leeds it certainly seems like there are more than 28 people sleeping rough and with more people seeming to appear each week it is clear that there is nowhere else these people have to go or want to go.
Upon a discussion with those sleeping rough Leeds City Council reported in its "Homeless Strategy 2016-19" that people were reluctant to spend a night in Leeds hostels and stating that the accommodation provided in Leeds acts as a barrier to getting off the streets.
People don't want to sleep in Hostels, horror stories of people getting beaten up and the treatment they receive here put many people off staying in this form of accommodation.
During the snow earlier this year many hostel in Leeds city centre found themselves massively over capacity and not able to deal with the numbers of people seeking refugee from the weather. This is the second year the weather has dropped below freezing causing severe snow in the city centre.
Hostels and rough sleeping accommodation can't cope with the numbers of people they receive in these cold temperatures and can't get people to stay when there isn't an emergency weather warning. This just shows the issue which Leeds has with the quality of the hostels. A successful hostile will help people all year round not only when it is too dangerous or cold for people to sleep on the streets.
Leeds City Council needs to look at the Hostels which are currently in operation in Leeds and bring them up to an acceptable standard of which rough sleepers want to spend the night. Communicating with those sleeping rough to improve them in a way which will encourage people to spend the night instead of choosing to spend the night on the streets over the hostels which can be found in Leeds.
