Concern for anyone sleeping rough in North Yorkshire as cold snap continues
Charities say they're doing everything possible to get people into accommodation
Last updated 1st May 2025
Homeless charities in North Yorkshire say spending a night on the streets could be "deadly" as the freezing conditions continue.
It's why they're trying to get everyone into emergency accommodation.
Richard Cooper is from Harrogate homeless project.
"We have 38 beds across our estate and five of those are what we call no second night out beds and they're available for people who are sleeping rough and we can take them in and take that problem of not having a roof over your head away straight away.
"We've also got aid to longer term emergency beds within that 38 bed accommodation that I spoke about, where we can give people certainty over a longer period of time. So no second night out beds they get people straight off the streets. Emergency beds they give them certainty for a longer period. We also have a day centre where we provide hot food every single day from 9:30 through to 3:30 in the afternoon.
"People are using our day centre for a hot meal, hot drink, a lot. We serve about 5000 meals a year and there's extra pressure on us over the winter period. We work very closely with North Yorkshire Council as well, who are key partners of ours and we help them make sure that no one has to sleep rough, working in tandem, making the best of both our resources.
"We have a team of dedicated hostel workers and support workers who can help people, not just with getting a roof over their heads but any other problems that they may have that will cause them to be sleeping rough or to be homeless. That can include family breakdown, addictions, mental and physical health problems, or any other issue that's led them to sleep on the street.
"Every single week, our support workers actually go out to the areas where people are most likely to rough sleep to make sure that people if they are there, know that they can come in to us, to look at what support we can offer them. If they don't want to come into us for whatever reason. People can be suffering a wide variety of physical and mental health problems, social problems and we help them wherever they are, whether they're in our accommodation or if they're sleeping rough, to overcome those problems. So we try and make sure that nobody is sleeping out by going out there and finding people in areas where we know rough sleeping is likely."