Thanet’s homelessness team RISE gains £1.7million boost to continue vital work

The RISE team works to help people get off the streets and into accommodation Photo Frank Leppard

The Thanet Rise project, which supports isle people rough sleeping or on the brink of homelessness, will be able to continue its award-winning work into 2021-22, thanks to a £1.7million funding boost from the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government (MHCLG).

The funding, which was applied for by the team at Thanet District Council, is the highest amount given to any district local authority in the country. It is also the largest amount of funding for rough sleeping services awarded to a Kent council in the latest allocations. A total of £200 million is being awarded nationally.

For Thanet, the funding will mean the multi-agency RISE team can continue working more intensively and flexibly with rough sleepers; continue to provide a 24/7 ‘’Somewhere Safe to Stay’’ Homeless Centre – including up to 20 self contained bed spaces for this coming year’s Winter Shelter scheme – and provide an extra 22 bed spaces with tailored personal support which would not exist without the extra funding.

Since the RISE project began in October 2018, the council led team has joined forces with other key agencies such as Forward Trust, NHS, Paramount Independent Property Services, Serveco and the Salvation Army to ensure services are joined up and working together.

This results in one holistic pathway out of homelessness for rough sleepers and enables the team to support people into long term accommodation.

Rise team on the streets

To date RISE has supported more than 500 people who were rough sleeping or at immediate risk of rough sleeping. It has housed 240 people into long term substantive accommodation – 85% of these people remain in accommodation and anyone who has ‘stepped back’ is still offered support through other RISE services.

The team’s work has prevented an additional 137 people from rough sleeping or supported them to stay with friends and family and 15 people have been reconnected nationally or internationally to areas of origin where they have access to accommodation, support and a local connection.

The latest funding will also mean the project can provide street level outreach support 365 days a year, including evenings and weekends, to support those still rough sleeping and who need help into accommodation.

The team can help with long term support for anyone experiencing underlying complex challenges that may have contributed to homelessness – such as substance misuse and mental health and wellbeing. Additional specialist staff, including substance misuse workers, a homeless nurse and a mental health advisor will be employed.

Tenancy sustainment support once people have been housed is offered, helping people with budgeting, setting up bills and running a home to try and prevent future homelessness. There will also be additional funding to support rough sleepers with personalised budgets, move in costs, furniture and deposits.

New services, such as dentistry and optometry will also be made accessible for RISE clients.

Cllr Jill Bayford, Cabinet Member for Housing, said: “Our Rise team has helped hundreds of the district’s most vulnerable residents to find the support and accommodation they need. We are delighted to have received this funding to ensure that these vital services are delivered for a further year and continue our work which aims to completely end rough sleeping on our streets.

“In partnership with the Government, we hope to secure further funding beyond 2022 so that we can help people facing homelessness before they sleep rough.”

Contact RISE

Call 01843 577277 – or 01843 577000 in an emergency out of hours.

Email: [email protected]

Thanet Winter Shelter 2020/21 helps 76 people who had been sleeping rough

8 Comments

  1. The council needs to build more homes for those waiting on the housing register. Because there are not enough council houses and flats available this allows the private sector to keep increasing rents making homes unaffordable and thus putting a lot of people onto the streets making them homeless. The provision of extra beds in a shelter is not the answer really. You need to tackle the causes of homelessness first so that people are not dumped onto the street where they turn to drink and drugs in their eternal miserable lives.

  2. they should be able to buy thier own houses with the ammount of money they ponce off the public, when they are laying on the floor with thier mobile phones and cans of drink – i have even heard them discussing drug deals on their mobiles, i think its more of a live style choice, and that some of them are professional ponces who do it for easy handouts!

  3. One person

    Margaret Thatcher

    She allowed council tenants from big cities to buy the council house on the cheap.

    She didnt replace these houses.

    Fast forward a few years and the ex council tenants now sell their ex council house for big profit, very big profit.

    They than move to other parts of the country with money to burn, once these people realise the people from the cities have loads of money. They start putting upping the sale price.

    Fast forward a few years a lack of council house country wide.
    Locals in cornwall, Devon, kent etc cant afford to stay to buy and are force into pvt landlords. Locals now need to be top earns to be able to buy and live nearly their parents and friends. Most locals are on minimum wage and struggle to pay pvt rent.

    She was also behind the closure of looks of mentally healthy hospitals.

    She destroyed communities like the steel, ship building and mining villages and cities.

    This country still hasnt really recovered Thatcher.

    Yet the person who cause all this heart ache, was given a bloody state funeral. My taxes paid to buy this evil person.

  4. The problem with all these projects and millions being spent on homeless services is that the area becomes a magnet for homeless people from outside the area.

    The same thing happened in Canterbury a decade or so ago. They ended up with an even bigger homeless problem than they started with as word got around that there were loads of facilities available for homeless people.

    If I cast my mind back 5 years or so, Thanet didn’t really have a homeless or rough sleeping problem. Now, despite the millions being received, I see more rough sleepers around than I ever have which doesn’t seem to make much sense ?

  5. Art ? – a spot on and well written article – i wish thier were more people like you , that tell it as it is and was – as an ex kent miner i saw first hand the destruction that old witch delivered to working people ! she and her crones are fully reponsible for the situation we find our selves in nowadays , keep up the good work , remember we are many they are few.

  6. Not quite sure how Paramount and Servco can be calssed as key agencies, they are busineses that profit from selling services to the council. Kathy any chance you could find out how much Paramount have received of late? The last figure i saw was 5 million a couple of years back.

    • Everything has to make a profit. Councils have to make a profit. Anything that runs at a loss doesn’t exist for long. And before you say charities don’t make a profit. Have a look what salaries the charity CEO’s give themselves. At least someone wants to spend their time tacking Thanets homeless issues which I imagine is hard work.

      • My point was that the companies are classed as key agencies , which in the context of the likes of the “environment agency” “highways agency” etc suggests they are public bodies rather than the companies they are , at which point it would be interesting to see what they are paid for the services they provide and annidea of the profits they make.
        A council does not need to make a profit , in an ideal world it would break even without having to resort to selling any and everything off to balance the books.

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