MANY of Oxford’s homeless are being shunted out of the county to find places to live because they can’t be housed here.

At a city council housing panel meeting last Thursday, the council’s housing chief Stephen Clarke told members Oxford’s hostels are “silting up” because of a lack of available accommodation for people to move on to.

Lesley Dewhurst of Oxford Homeless Pathways which runs O’Hanlon House, the first stop for Oxford’s homeless, said the only way to move people on from hostels is to help them look for housing outside the county.

She said: “It’s absolutely true. We can work as hard as we can to get people to address all the issues that have led them to be homeless and get them ready to be tenants, but it’s almost impossible to find anything in the private rental sector in Oxfordshire.

“There is virtually nothing in the private rental sector in the city that is affordable so we’re having to look for homes elsewhere.

“We’re getting people ready for work and thinking about how we can get them involved in their communities and then we’re having to ask them to take a daunting step and move outside the county.

“We’re basically having to ask vulnerable and lonely people to go off and be vulnerable and lonely elsewhere.”

Oxford’s rough sleepers – an estimated 56 a month – are first contacted by a team run by the St Mungo’s charity which tries to offer them accommodation.

O’Hanlan House in Speedwell Street has 56 beds and 12 sit-up beds where people can sit overnight and wait for rooms to become free. But Mrs Dewhurst said these are always full.

Two second-stage hostels at Lucy Faithfull House and Simon House have another 110 beds which are also constantly full.

The demand on hostels is backed by Government statistics which show the number of rough sleepers in Oxford has increased to 26 in 2014, from 19 in 2013 and 11 in 2010.

Matt Downie, director of policy and external affairs at homeless charity Crisis, which has a base in Oxford, said: “It is vital that councils are given adequate funding to address homelessness, so they can provide proper support.”

Oxford City Council has pledged to spend £5 million on renting homes in partnership with St Mungo’s from January 2016.

Housing panel chairwoman Linda Smith said the city council is having to take responsibility for the whole county’s homeless population. She said: “We’re doing everything we can. The extra housing proposed by the council should help move people through the system.”

The budget for housing support services had to be reduced by Oxfordshire County Council by 38 per cent in 2014 due to government grant cuts.

The council is currently re- tendering contractors to provide all its homeless services across the county and this process will be complete in the autumn.