Rough Sleepers Task Force

Shropshire's District and Borough Councils are working together through Shropshire's Homelessness Strategy Implementation Group (HSIG) to focus on the issue of rough sleepers in North Shropshire.

Work has been ongoing with this project since the beginning of 2007.  A number of Agencies were invited and meetings were held with agencies to discuss 'rough sleepers' on 21 May 2007, 3 July 2007, and 2 August 2007.

As part of the assessment into rough sleeping in North Shropshire the Council wrote to all the Parish Councils in May 2007 to establish the level of 'rough sleeping' in the Parish.

Parish Councils were asked to confer with their members and submit an educated estimate of how many people they believed (or know of) to be 'sleeping rough' in their Parish.

The information provided from the Parish Councils was there were no 'rough sleepers' in the North Shropshire District.

The Council contacted the Communities and Local Government with these findings and it was suggested that the Council were not required to carry out a 'rough sleepers' count.

It was agreed at the meeting on 2 August 2007 that North Shropshire District Council needed to carry out intelligence gathering across the District to find the right agencies that would be aware of any rough sleepers within the District.

Therefore the Council is in the process of setting up a referral service with agencies so that they can refer cases of 'rough sleeping' to the Rough Sleepers Task Force Group.  Meetings will be set up with the Task Force Group to monitor and evaluate what will happen with the referrals from agencies and do an action plan of the way forward.

DEFINITION OF ROUGH SLEEPER

"'Individuals 'sleeping rough' should include people sleeping or bedded down, in the open-air (such as on the streets, or in doorways, parks or bus shelters); people in buildings or other places not designed for habitation (such as barns, sheds, car parks, derelict boats and stations etc)."

Anyone wishing to report a 'rough sleeper' then please contact the Housing Options Team at the Council Offices on Tel: 01939 238520 or email HousingOptions@northshropshiredc.gov.uk.

If possible please provide the following details:

Name:

Age:

Background Information:

Who the referral was made by and provide details of where they are sleeping rough, if possible: