Homelessness Strategy

This is Exeter City Council's second homelessness strategy and builds on the existing strategy devised in 2003. This strategy aims to provide a strategic framework to tackle and prevent homelessness for the next 5 years for the Council and our partners.

 Homelessness Strategy 2008 - 2013 [771kb]
 Updated Homelessness Strategy Action Plan September 2009 [147kb]

National and local approaches to homelessness have changed a great deal since the previous strategy. Nationally we have seen a change of emphasis to the prevention of homelessness and setting of the 2010 target to reduce use of temporary accommodation.

Change in Focus

Since the production of Exeter's last homelessness strategy the service has changed considerably to enable an increased focus on homelessness prevention. The housing advice team is composed of 7 prevention focused front line officers with two officers dedicated to administration of homelessness applications. Additionally a Move-On Officer post has been created to oversee the move-on of clients through supported accommodation.

The success of these staffing changes can be seen in an increase in prevention cases and reduction in households in temporary accommodation from 300 in April 2005 to 130 in April 2010.

Reviews of the service from Shelter in 2005 and 2010 and Filby Moore Consultants in 2007 also highlighted the strength of the prevention focused service.

Exeter Homeless Collaboration

Since 2003 the local authority funded Exeter Homelessness Collaboration has brought together the following organisations,

• The Local Authority
• Community Housing Aid (CHA)- who run the Nightstop scheme for emergency placement of young people, the Smartmove rent deposit scheme and a general housing advice service in the city.
• Exeter Shilhay Community – who manage the Street Homeless Outreach Team (SHOT),  Gabriel House Hostel in the city, a number of move-on properties and the Meaningful Occupation Project (MOP), providing access to training and employment opportunities for vulnerably housed clients in Exeter
• St Petrocks – who manage the advice, resource and training centre in Cathedral Yard
• The Clocktower Surgery – which is a GP Surgery in the city specialising in assisting rough sleepers and vulnerably housed clients.

The collaborating agencies meet regularly to provide a joined-up approach to tackling homelessness. An action plan will be published in September 2008 (which will then be set as an appendix to this strategy) setting out the key areas where the group can work together.

There has also been much closer partnership working amongst other local authorities in the sub region. The Devon-wide Choice Based Lettings Scheme is now live and a successful joint bid (led by Exeter) was made to Communities and Local Government (CLG) for additional funding to increase housing options and advice provision across the county. Shelter has been commissioned to produce an overall assessment of housing advice across Devon with the aim of sharing best practice and ensuring consistency.

We welcome comment on the strategy through housing.advice@exeter.gov.uk

Individual Budgets Pilot

Recently (May 2010) Exeter City Council and North Devon District Council were chosen as one of 4 pilot areas across the country to look at offering individual budgets to entrenched rough sleepers as an attempt to move them indoors. To date in Exeter this approach has housed 7 of the 10 targeted individuals, some of whom had been sleeping rough for a number of years. The evaluation of this pilot was undertake by Dr Colin Pritchard, Research Professor of Psychiatric Social Work at Bournemouth University and can be found below.  

 Individual Budgets for Roughsleepers Evaluation May 2010 [395kb]