Teesside homelessness support charity 'seeing a lot more new faces'
DePaul UK says the number of rough sleepers remains high
A homelessness support charity in Teesside say they're seeing a lot more new faces coming from out of the area.
Depaul UK also say the number of rough sleepers remains high and they're working with the council to find out what's driving those numbers.
Alan Jones, pathways manager at Depaul UK in Middlesbrough, said: "I think there has been quite a change over the last probably six months or so. We're seeing a lot more new faces coming in. We used to have quite a population of entrenched rough sleepers and a good proportion of those have been successful in gaining accommodation, but they're quickly being replaced by new faces and a lot of those people are from out of the area.
"Rough sleeper numbers remain high in Middlesbrough and across the country so we're going to be working with the council to find out what's driving those numbers at the moment. We're going to be introducing some new outreach roles to really target supporting those individuals are we're actually getting some more support to work with people who are in accommodation as well.
"We open our drop-in, give them some warm drinks, tea, toast and we link them in with all the other support that's available in the town. We have the housing solution rough sleeper team come in, we have the drug and alcohol teams come in, we have mental health services in, so they can get somewhere comfortable and get the support they need on a one-to-one basis.
"We have an open door here. People can ring us, we've got our website if people are wanting to link in with any of the wider work that we do, we also run a nightstop service which works with low risk individuals who can offer them a night off the streets. We're really keen to increase of number of hosts that we have for that service, since we run that on a volunteer basis."
He tells us why he thinks people are homeless and rough sleeping: "It's a very, very complex situation. I don't think there's one answer for everybody. There's been a lot of research done that you can actually trace right back to people's childhood trauma that they might have experienced which has built up over the years, relationships can break down, people can lose jobs, or fall into addiction."