Cheltenham Councillor joins P3 Street Outreach to highlight homelessness
Councillor Peter Jeffries recently went out with members of P3 Gloucestershire’s Street Outreach Team, to complete a homelessness count to determine the number of rough sleepers in the town.
The councillor, who is the Cabinet Member for Homelessness at Cheltenham Borough Council, spent two hours with Street Outreach Workers Fiona Price and Catherine Power on an evening outreach visit in Cheltenham town centre, to see for himself the extent of the homelessness issue. He said:
“It’s an area I’m passionate about as I was homeless for a brief period myself when I was younger, after coming out of the armed forces. Cheltenham is a very affluent town, so it’s easy to forget that we have homeless people on our streets. In fact, we have experienced a near 100% increase in rough sleeping since 2013.”
A different approach to homelessness strategy
The council are currently reviewing their Homelessness Strategy and Councillor Jeffries undertook a personal challenge to spend 3 days and nights sleeping on the streets last year to understand the issue from an inside perspective.
"I learned so much about the complex array of individual circumstances impacting people who are homeless"
In an extract from an article written after this experience, he explained:
“As anyone involved in the public sector will tell you, the starting point of answering any question is usually some form of consultation…But in the case of rough sleepers you can’t really ask the people whose lives will be most impacted. When somebody’s main tasks every day are gathering a few pounds for a meal, staying warm and then finding a place to sleep, why would they bother to take part in something like a council consultation? And if they’re living on the streets or in insecure accommodation, it’s pretty unlikely they’d even find out in the first place.
“To get over this hurdle I carried out my own ‘hands-on consultation’ and my experiences over those three nights will stay with me for the rest of my life.
“Spending time with and talking to around 25 people existing on our streets, I learned so much about the complex array of individual circumstances impacting them. To be homeless is to have your status as a member of the human race cruelly taken away. Those of us who can help must do everything we can give it back.”
P3’s Gloucestershire Street Outreach Team cover the whole of Gloucestershire, working with each rough sleeper to engage and motivate them towards a life away from the streets. Service Manager Ella Hawkins said:
“The team work to remove the barriers that have led to the person’s current situation, helping them navigate the process towards finding settled accommodation. P3 are there to provide a link between local services such as Cheltenham Borough Council and the rough sleepers themselves, so it was great to have Peter come out with our frontline staff to assess and understand the homelessness situation in Cheltenham, in order to better inform the council’s Homelessness Strategy.”
If you have seen someone rough sleeping in Gloucestershire who may need our help, get in touch with P3’s Gloucestershire Street Outreach Team or contact Streetlink to connect people who are homeless to local support services anywhere in the UK.
