North Yorkshire Council

 

Housing & Leisure Overview & Scrutiny Committee

 

11 June 2025

 

Draft Homelessness and Rough Sleeping Strategy 2025-2030

 

Report of the Corporate Director Community Development

 

1.0       PURPOSE OF REPORT

 

1.1       To consider the Council’s draft Homelessness and Rough Sleeping Strategy 2025-2030. 

 

 

2.0       SUMMARY

 

2.1       The North Yorkshire Homelessness and Rough Sleeping Strategy 2025-2030 sets the strategic direction for homelessness and rough sleeping services across North Yorkshire.

 

2.2       The Council has worked closely with homeless link who are a national charity for organisations working with people experiencing or at risk of homelessness in the development of the findings for the past 12 months.

 

2.3       Our vision is of preventing homelessness and rough sleeping wherever possible and where homelessness cannot be prevented, to make it rare, brief and non-recurrent. We intend to achieve this vision through working with our local statutory partners, and to ensure good quality and stable temporary and long-term housing is available, with support in place where this is needed.

 

2.4       Officers have worked closely with Homelessness Link in the development of the draft strategy.  The strategy will be considered at two Homelessness and Rough Sleeping Partnership workshops on the 15th and 22nd July.

 

2.5       An action plan will be developed from the strategy which will be reviewed and monitored through the East and West Homelessness and Rough Sleeping Forums as well as the NY Homeless and Rough Sleeping Partnership meetings.

 

2.6       The draft strategy will be sent to colleagues across the council and partners for comments for inclusion in the final document.

 

2.7       The purpose of this report is to gain the view of Members to help inform the final recommendation to Executive.

 

3.0       BACKGROUND        

 

3.1       Under the Homelessness Act 2002, all housing authorities must have in place a homelessness strategy based on a review of all forms of homelessness in their district. The strategy must be renewed at least every five years.

 

3.2       The strategy must set out the authority’s plans for the prevention of homelessness and for securing that sufficient accommodation and support are or will be available for people who become homeless or who are at risk of becoming so.

 

3.3       We have a strong track record in the prevention and reduction of homelessness. The draft Homelessness and Rough Sleeping Strategy is designed to build upon this success by continuing to drive down homelessness and rough sleeping in the County.

 

3.4       The draft strategy was developed following a review of homelessness services that included stakeholder engagement exercises with colleagues, service users and partner organisations.

 

3.5       The review considered the previous council’s achievements during the lifetime of the previous strategies the current demands on the Homelessness Service; and the ability to meet these demands in the future. The review findings have informed the themes and priorities of the draft strategy.

 

3.6       This is the first Homelessness and Rough Sleeping Strategy for the new unitary North Yorkshire Council. It outlines the Council’s vision for preventing homelessness and rough sleeping, its priorities and the actions it will take to achieve these priorities over the next five years

 

4.0       ALIGNING WITH OTHER NORTH YORKSHIRE STRATEGIES

 

4.1       The Housing Strategy 2024-2029 recognises the challenges brought about through increased demand for homelessness services and temporary accommodation, reduced supply of private and social rented accommodation (especially in rural areas), housing affordability, and demographic changes- including an ageing population and the emergence of new groups, such as asylum seekers and refuges.

           

4.2       The North Yorkshire Joint Health and Wellbeing Strategy 2023-2030 recognises the contributions of a wide range of local services to peoples’ health and wellbeing, including housing, social care, community safety and leisure. The strategy highlights opportunities for joined up working offered by the introduction of integrated care boards, including across the NHS, local councils and other partners and by integrated care systems, which can coordinate services and planning to improve population heath and reduce inequalities between different groups.

 

5.0       KEY PARTNERSHIPS

 

5.1       North Yorkshire Housing Needs Service participates in North Yorkshire Home Choice, the choice-based allocations scheme for the county. Home Choice involves local authority and housing association properties for social rent across North Yorkshire areas.

 

5.2       Through its membership of the York and North Yorkshire Housing Partnership, the Housing Service is involved in boosting delivery of affordable homes, supporting economic development and supporting strategic aims around healthy and thriving communities.

 

5.3       In addition to the above a new partnership group will be formed between the Housing Needs Service and the housing management of partner Registered social landlords to work together to prevent homelessness and sustain tenancies within the social sector.

 

5.4       The North Yorkshire Homeless and Rough Sleeper Forums have recently been launched. Meetings have taken place in the in the East and the West with around 70 attendees.

 

5.5       The Housing Needs Service also participates in many other partnerships covering Domestic Abuse, Child Sexual Exploitation, Safeguarding, Drugs and Alcohol Partnerships and Multi Agency tasking and coordination and public protection arrangements.

 

6.0       CONSULTATION

 

As part of the process of developing the strategy we have been working closely with Homeless Link. They have visited the County and met with staff through four site visits. They have reviewed internal and external data, including H-CLIC, Young Persons Pathway and NY Home Choice reports, DHP awards, ONS population and house price data, rough sleeping snapshots, and monthly surveys.

 

Also, feedback was gained from all Housing Options staff through team meetings.

 

We also held one-to-one and small group discussions with around 30 internal and external stakeholders – including Senior Leaders across Housing, Culture, and Community Development

 

Surveys were also undertaken and focus groups with individuals using Council Homelessness Services, including an online survey on Duty to Refer and Commitment to Refer.

 

7.0       FINDINGS

            See attached slides at Appendix B.

 

8.0       CONTRIBUTION TO COUNCIL PRIORITIES

 

8.1       Homelessness and Rough Sleeping Strategy sits below,​

Housing Strategy Theme - Our People: The Housing Strategy has identified the following priorities for this theme:​

·       Preventing and tackling homelessness​

·       Recognising the needs of our population at different life stages​

·       Meeting supported housing needs and the needs of specific groups

 

9.0       PERFORMANCE MEASURES

 

9.1       The Homelessness and Rough Sleeping Forums will oversee the delivery of the Homelessness and Rough Sleeping Strategy and action plan, ensuring it achieves its stated aims and outcomes through the delivery of high quality, consistent services which meet the needs of people who are homeless or at risk of homelessness across the local authority area. Both the East and West Homelessness will link with the NY Homelessness and Rough Sleeping Partnership group and progress on the action plan will be reported to the group.

 

9.2       Progress is being made on streamlining the performance management framework, so we are able to understand the demand and pressures within the service and since the 1 April 2025, North Yorkshire Council has one homelessness system in use across the whole of the service.

 

9.3       The service also provides extensive quarterly returns to MHCLG and this is published through the national statistics. The service also produces rough sleeper data for the government along with monthly homelessness pressures statistics.

 

10.0     FINANCIAL IMPLICATIONS

 

10.1     The main financial implications arising from this report relate to maintaining the MHCLG government grants for Homeless Prevention and Rough Sleeper Services. We are aware of the Homeless Prevention Grant funding levels for 25/26 is £2.9m an uplift of £650K from 24/25 levels. Consultation has taken place, and this is likely to reduce back to 24/25 amounts from 2026 onwards. We are awaiting the announcement relating to rough sleeper funding for 2026 onwards, we currently receive £750K for these services.  By implementing the service improvements savings will be made to the current spend on bed and breakfast accommodation.

 

11.0     LEGAL IMPLICATIONS

 

11.1     As stated above, it is a legal requirement for the Council to have an up-to-date Homelessness Strategy. This is the first one for the new unitary authority and as such we have worked with a national charity to ensure we were accessing as much best practice for innovative solutions to improve our services for the next five years.

 

The proposed Homelessness and Rough Sleeping Strategy 2025 meets the requirements set out in the legislation and guidance and there is no legal reason why it should not be adopted.

 

12.0     EQUALITIES IMPLICATIONS

 

12.1    An Equalities Impact Assessment form will be completed as part of the strategy.  

 

13.0     CLIMATE CHANGE IMPLICATIONS

 

13.1     A Climate Change Impact Assessment will be completed as part of the strategy.

 

14.0     POLICY IMPLICATIONS

 

14.1     The Council has a statutory duty have a strategy in place by 2025 as this is the first one for the new Council.

 

15.0     RISK MANAGEMENT IMPLICATIONS

 

15.1     Homelessness and Rough Sleeping is a complex area of Council service provision and statutory obligation. These services aim to achieve positive outcomes for some of the county’s most vulnerable residents and comprise multi agency partnerships reliant on a wide range of disciplines such as tenancy management, support in temporary accommodation. As such, uncertainly is significant and risks exist.

 

15.2     Key Risks

Operating ‘housing first models’ need a successful partnership approach and adequately resources and there needs to be a multi-disciplinary support package

 

15.3     The pressures on affordable housing supply continue to increase and it is not possible to identify sufficient properties to meet homelessness needs

 

15.4     Staffing recruitment and retention challenges undermine the expertise and dedication that is needed for high quality work that is essential to success in this complex area

 

15.5     A significant increase in need through government policy developments around asylum seeker accommodation

 

15.6     Other national, global factors such as economic, social or medical crisis materialise within the life of the strategy and restrict available resources or otherwise prevent the attainment of actions and priorities

 

15.7     Significant reduction in grant funding or budget amounts to deliver the service.

 

 

16.0     REASONS FOR RECOMMENDATIONS

 

16.1     The Councils needs the Homelessness and Rough Sleeping Strategy to achieve positive outcomes for vulnerable individuals and other benefits within the strategy, whilst meeting the Council’s statutory responsibilities and making effective use of resources.

 

17.0     RECOMMENDATIONS

 

17.1     The Committee are asked to note the draft findings:

 

i)       Provide feedback on the content of the draft Homelessness and Rough Sleeping Strategy.

 

ii)      Provide any questions as required for discussion with the Executive Member for Housing.

 

 

Nic Harne

Corporate Director – Community Development

County Hall

Northallerton

 

11 June 2025

 

Report Authors – Kim Robertshaw Head of Housing Needs

Presenter of Report – Andrew Rowe, Assistant Director for Housing

 

BACKGROUND DOCUMENTS: None

 

APPENDICES:

Appendix A – Draft Homelessness and Rough Sleeping Strategy 2025-2030

Appendix B – Presentation Slides

 

 

Note: Members are invited to contact the author in advance of the meeting with any detailed queries or questions.