Issue - meetings

The Cabinet Member for Communities introduced the report.

 

The report detailed the background to the introduction of an extended Homelessness and Rough Sleeping Strategy (2021 -2028) and Local Action Plan to cover the period June 2026 – March 2028.

 

In response to questions from Cabinet Members and those Councillors present, the Cabinet Member for Communities, the Chief Executive and the Assistant Director, Housing and Health said the following:

      i.         Had attended a homelessness conference which included contributions from individuals with lived experience of homelessness which highlighted the value of drawing on their insights and perspectives when considering homelessness services and policy.

    ii.         Emphasised the importance of ensuring these voices were heard across all Homelessness Charter support pillars, including the Council-led pillar, to help shape future work.

   iii.         It was critical that people with lived experience helped to shape the Council’s work.

  iv.         Noted that while such perspectives were often gathered informally through partner organisations, embedding them more systematically in the Council strategies and decision-making would be beneficial.

    v.         Had arranged a visit with Cyrenius to view modular housing sites and to learn more about their plans to deliver additional modular homes across the city.

  vi.         It was important through the Council’s partnership working to increase the provision of modular homes.

 vii.         An example of the Council leading multi- agency working were as follows: 

·      Co-Chair on the Homelessness Charter Group.

·      Sat on the Charter Board with the Assistant Director Housing & Health.

·      The Strategic Housing Advice Lead Officer, lead the Housing pillar Working Group.

·      A Homelessness and Rough Sleeping Board was in the process of being established, chaired by the Assistant Director Housing & Health at Officer level.

 

viii.         The Council recognised the need to balance close partnership working with the many organisations delivering homelessness services in the city while also providing clear leadership and direction.

  ix.         Confirmed that, while partnership working would remain central, key elements of the homelessness agenda would be led by the Council.

    x.         Noted the comment of thanks to the Strategic Housing Advice Lead Officer and their team for the swift outreach response during the recent heatwave, and the request for feedback in on successes, challenges and lessons learned.

  xi.         Agreed that homelessness was a complex area, covering statutory duties and a range of support services. Confirmed training would be availble to all Councillors to help better understand the services available and the Council’s responsibilities.

 xii.         In relation to the slide in the Officer’s report Pathway 3 – routes to accommodation (priority singles), p157 of the agenda pack, acknowledged that over half of those supported required assistance due to a physical disability and emphasised the importance of ensuring that appropriate accommodation, services and support were accessible to meet their needs.

xiii.         Residents with physical disabilities who experienced homelessness often required both suitable accommodation and additional support and work was often linked with the Development Team.

xiv.         The Council had expanded its Tenancy Sustainment Team to provide early, proactive support, including home visits for those moving through homelessness pathways, this would allow a more proactive approach with new tenants. Officers could also utilise the Council’s Disabled Adaptations Budget within the Housing Revenue Account when adaptions were required.

xv.         Agreed that health, mental health and addiction issues were also key factors in homelessness and tenancy sustainment and stressed the importance of the NHS Integrated Care Board’s involvement in addressing these challenges.

xvi.         Highlighted the critical role of the Access Surgery on Newmarket Road in supporting people experiencing homelessness and rough sleeping, and the need to increase capacity for such services.

xvii.         Expressed support for strengthening healthcare provision within the homelessness strategy and hoped that practical capacity and support could be developed further through the Action Plan over the coming years.

xviii.         Officers had been working with Jimmy’s Cambridge on potential future sites beyond the current lease and emphasised that a clear understanding of demand, funding and partner contributions, including from the County Council’s Streets to Homes partnership, would be required before any proposals could be progressed.

xix.         The Homelessness Strategy focused on supporting individuals to move away from rough sleeping through outreach and support services, rather than providing facilities that may enable rough sleeping to continue, such as portable toilets in known rough sleeping locations. Individuals were signposted to appropriate facilities and services. 

xx.         Sharps bins could be found in all Council owned public toilets, although acknowledged the facilities were not opened twenty-four hours a day and that more could be done.  Most pharmacies also had these bins which could be accessed by rough sleepers.

xxi.         The Homelessness Strategy had been developed by the views and priorities of those people who had experienced homelessness.

xxii.         Highlighted the support available through initiatives such as Street Aid, which members of the public could contribute to.  This would help provide practical help to people who lived or had lived on the streets.

Street Aid: Help for people on the streets - Cambridge City Council

xxiii.         Agreed that an increased awareness of the range of services to support street life people that the Council offered would be beneficial.

xxiv.         Agreed to review the proposed two-year extension of the Homelessness Strategy Action Plan.

xxv.         The Housing Needs Register was open to anyone seeking housing assistance, including those already housed and people presenting as homeless. The Council recognised the need for good-quality accommodation across the city and remained committed to providing as much social rented housing as possible, within existing constraints, to meet housing needs.

 

 

 

Cabinet unanimously resolved to:

      i.         Approve the introduction and implementation of the draft extended Cambridge City Homelessness and Rough Sleeping Strategy (2021 – 2028) and accompanying Local Action Plan as set out in Annexes 1 and 2 of the Officer’s report.

 

Post Committee Note:

In response to the following question from Councillor Flaubert a full response was provided by the Homelessness Prevention and Solutions Manager outside of the meeting which can be read below:

 

What measurable progress has been made in reducing repeat rough sleeping since the adoption of Priority 6 of the Homelessness and Rough Sleeping Strategy?

As stated in the Cabinet agenda pack, page 77, Rough sleeping tends to last longer than other forms of homelessness and is much more likely to be cyclical. As such, it is difficult to provide evidence over such a short period of time about the adoption of the priority and its effectiveness on services. Rough Sleeping Services use quarterly statistics, which are provided to MHCLG, and generally yearly statistics for measurement. Rough sleeping is split into 2 different types– short term rough sleeping and long-term rough sleeping.

 

There are measurements in place for people with a history of repeat rough sleeping. The Target Priority Group (TPG) identifies individuals who experience long-term or cyclical rough sleeping and are furthest from services. It consists of entrenched, named individuals furthest from the system who are least likely to ask for, accept, or receive standard support. Each year, using the TPG definition set by MHCLG, the Council measures the amount of people that meet this definition, collectively with our partners at the Street Outreach Team, HEaRT team (Drugs & Alcohol Support) and Housing First.

 

Over the last few years, Cambridge City Council has been successful in reducing the number of individuals within the TPG, however due to the high number of people that fall within this group, there is still a lot of work to be done. The Council’s Team around a Person (TAP) model, introduced in 2023, has brought together a multi-agency approach to resolving rough sleeping within the TPG. People within the TPG have specialist TAP’s coordinated by the City Council, to bring together the services to work together to get people into accommodation. The steps are individualistic, with professionals deciding between them the best route to get people to engage, and then into housing. It is important to note that work in this area needs to be small incremental steps, designed for that person, otherwise lack of engagement and distrust of services, will continue to lead to cyclical rough sleeping. This is why the time period to measure a reduction in rough sleeping is important. For example, getting a person to attend a group, a GP or scripting services can take several months.

 

Below are the statistics provided to MHCLG since TAP was introduced (full financial year).

 

Year	Number of TPG in April	Breakdown of Sex	Number of people carried over to the following year	% reduction from previous year
24/25	44	F – 12 M - 32	19	57%
25/26	44	F – 13 M - 31	18	59%
26/27	34	F – 10 M - 23	17	23%

 

Of the 34 individuals in the TPG in 26/27, so far, 5 have permanent accommodation and 7 have precarious accommodation (e.g. Jimmy’s East Road, staying with family or s188 temporary accommodation but not owed a s193 duty at time of writing). 20 have multiple complex needs (3 or more of domestic abuse (perp or survivor), criminal justice, mental health, physical health or Drugs/ alcohol). Only 10 have a local connection to Cambridge and 9 have No Recourse to Public Funds (of which a large percentage are the individuals carried over each year as they have limited options that the Council and our partners can provide).

 

Question - Which actions within Priority 6 have been fully implemented, and which remain outstanding?

Please see each priority below with the response below it.

 

Work with providers to help speed up move on from hostels, whilst at the same time reviewing how evictions and abandonments can be reduced.

The Council introduced the Team Around a Person Prevention Panel (TAPPP) in 2025. Building on the success of TAP, the Panel meets each week to discuss people in adult services that are likely to face eviction or abandon their accommodation. The TAPPP has also been integrated into the Street’s to Home weekly meetings. TAPPP brings together Cambridge City Council (Single Homeless Coordinator and Homeless Prevention Support Officers), HEaRT, Dual Diagnosis Street Team (Drugs and Alcohol), accommodation providers and the Street Outreach Team to provide support to individuals and accommodation providers. This support is individual to the needs of the person or accommodation service and decisions vary from paying off arrears, having drug/ alcohol support plans amended through to managing behaviour to help keep accommodation. This will be extended to the Young Futures Partnership in 2026 to bring the same successes to young people.

Regarding move on, the Council has an officer dedicated to move on from supported accommodation and holds monthly Hostel Allocation & Resettlement Panels (allocating band A to hostel licensees that are ready to move on). In addition to this, RSAP accommodation has been amended to take on people with support needs, that provide long term accommodation for people. Whilst a lot of work is being completed in this area, it does not increase the amount of accommodation that the Council can move people into, which causes delays in move on.

 

Work with providers to review the scope and effectiveness of hostel-based support, particularly in relation to move-on advice.

This work has not started. Supported Accommodation is commissioned by Cambridgeshire County Council, so would require their buy in. However, there is going to be a more general overview assessments of supported accommodation via the Supported Accommodation (Regulatory Oversight) Act and the System Maturity Audit as part of the Long-Term Rough Sleeping Partnership Plan.  Although similar, they cover the assessment from different angles – one is an assessment of the accommodation and the other is an assessment as part of the ecosystem for rough sleepers.

 

Explore whether being excluded from moving on due to previous breaches of tenancy can be prevented.

There is no exclusion for being moved on due to previous breaches, however, particularly via the private rented sector, this itself can be a barrier. The Council has no control over whether a private landlord takes a person, other than those defined within the Renter’s Rights Act. It would technically be a breach of licence to have rent arrears and this falls within the Housing Related Debt Policy.

 

Work with sub-regional authorities to help improve City access to existing hostel beds.

Work on this has not started

 

Work with the County Council to assess what balance between hostel and other accommodation might be appropriate going forwards.

Work on this has not started and should not start until the Supported Accommodation (Regulatory Oversight) Act and the System Maturity Audit have been completed. Mapping the current needs of both statutory homelessness and rough sleeping is key to good decision making.

 

Promote and make private rented housing a more attractive option, to help make it available to a wider range of applicants.

Work has started on this, with the officers in the Homeless Prevention & Solutions Team going out to each hostel to explain the Renter’s Rights Act and promote services that the Council has, to help people move on. Focus has been on the Young Futures Partnership first, learning from this, before going into adult services via Street’s to Home.

 

Review the effectiveness of the Housing First model of provision and explore whether it should be extended to include private rented sector homes.

Independent Review completed on the effectiveness in 2025, which was positive on the Housing First project and their way of working. Not extended to private rented accommodation currently, namely because of cost and competing demands with statutory homelessness and Townhall Lettings.

 

Explore with social housing providers whether there are opportunities for short life or low demand social housing available, including to single sharers.

Not started

 

Expand the provision of modular homes and explore other innovative ways of providing accommodation to prevent and relieve single homelessness.

Not started. Whether modular homes can be used to prevent or relieve statutory homelessness is not straight forward and could be subject to legal challenge. Modular homes remain a good option for people with low/ medium needs but lessons learned with our partners at Jimmy’s suggest that they are an excellent model as part of a journey from rough sleeping to independent accommodation but have a poor success for people immediately rough sleeping prior to moving in. Continuing the person’s journey to independence and using the modular homes as stepping stone accommodation has produced much better outcomes.

 

Continue to seek and make best use of funding opportunities to purchase new homes to accommodate rough sleepers.

No funding has been made available from Homes England or MHCLG, for rough sleepers, since adopting the priority. Regular contact between Cambridge City Council and the Rough Sleeping Advisor at MHCLG will continue and put Cambridge in the best place to put in a bid for funding if it becomes available. MHCLG has no current plans to expand RSAP, NSAP or SHAP.

 

Work with the County Council in considering the need for commissioning longer term supported provision for those for whom mainstream housing with support may not be suitable.

Not started.

 

Work collaboratively on shifting emphasis from a mainly streets-based towards more of a home-based service model.

Ongoing. The Council’s grant conditions under the Homelessness, Rough Sleeping and Domestic Abuse Grant, puts a focus on early intervention and maximising prevention activities, to avoid people rough sleeping. This is one aspect of this work. This will be measured via MHCLG’s Local Outcome Framework.