Grants worth £1.6 million are being made available to help prevent rough sleeping and homelessness.

The funds will pay for supported accommodation, engagement on the street, funding for council teams working with the homeless and support for getting into work.

Pooling their resources with other Oxfordshire councils and the NHS, Oxford City Council will provide £856,575 for 106 beds with 79 of them reserved for people with a connection to Oxford.

Emergency beds

A large part of the money will go towards staff and up to 101 beds in accommodation at Matilda House, Homeless Oxfordshire, Response and Mayday Trust. The remainder will be spent on the Severe Weather Emergency Protocol (SWEP) when beds are provided during freezing spells.

Some £47,500 will go towards street engagement where the council’s street ambassador team and Thames Valley Police make contact with rough sleepers, helping them to access services and preventing anti-social behaviour.

Grants worth £78,009 will fund a specialist tenancy sustainment officer at Elmore Community Services to work with council tenants. They also contribute to the council’s welfare reform team that helps people cope with changes to their benefits.

Day centre

Funding for The Porch day centre and the Gatehouse café, where people can access showers, laundry, food, training, education and a range of activities, is worth £199,367 which includes funding for day services provided at O’Hanlon House hostel before the pandemic.

There is also employment support funding for Aspire to provide training and employment opportunities for homeless and vulnerably housed people.

Other grants will go towards the council’s rough sleeping and single homeless team, free access to leisure services for people in supported accommodation and a sanctuary scheme for victims of domestic abuse.

The grants are part of the city council’s overall £9.1million investment to prevent homelessness and rough sleeping in 2020/2021.

Last March as the pandemic hit the government issued an “everyone in” direction for councils to provide emergency accommodation for homeless people including those in shared hostel spaces where they could not practise social distancing.

As a result Oxford City Council closed the assessment service at O’Hanlon House and the assessment hub and shelter in Floyds Row that had only opened in January.

The council secured 121 self-contained hotel and student rooms within two weeks of the direction.

As those temporary agreements with hotels and colleges came to an end in July, the council leased two blocks to provide 118 rooms of interim housing for another year.

Vaccination programme

The council hopes that the vaccination programme will offer a way out of ‘everyone in’ arrangements and back to Floyds Row.

An unallocated contingency fund will, if needed, allow the council to manage the transition.

Councillor Mike Rowley, cabinet member for affordable housing and housing the homeless, said: “Nobody should have to sleep rough in Oxford and our homeless prevention grants will help to fund up to 180 beds in jointly-commissioned services and a range of supported accommodation.

"They will also help to engage with people experiencing rough sleeping, provide employment support and core funding for positive activities and allow us to recommission day services."

He added: “We’ve had tangible success in helping people leave the streets behind for good since adopting the ‘everyone in’ approach. This is something we want to continue and if the vaccination rollout continues to be a success we hope to be able to do it from Floyds Row this year.”