Hostel plan to help homeless

South Holland District Council is looking into creating a hostel for the homeless as part of measures to improve the service while cutting costs.

It was one of the projects being worked on as outlined to a meeting of its Performance Monitoring Panel last week.
Officers are also set to host a Housing Advice Hub at the South Holland Centre next month.
The meeting was told that the number of people sleeping rough in South Holland in November was ten, up from seven the previous year.
Throughout Lincolnshire as a whole the number had increased from 44 to 66 over the same period.
South Holland District Council’s assistant director for wellbeing and community leadership Emily Spicer told the meeting that the service had made a reduction of £150,000 in its budget as it aimed to cost the council £350,000 in the next financial year.
“We’re being more efficient and effective,” she said. “We’ve had to change things as different regulations and circumstances change, the cost of living crisis for example, but we’ve created a new and dynamic team.
“I’m confident Tom Marsters and the team have got the resources he needs.
“We’re thinking about this innovatively.”
On the Housing Advice Hub to be held in the South Holland Centre she continued.
“We’re hoping to get our first one in March at the South Holland Centre.
“I’m hoping it will bring people in to get that prevention message out earlier and encourage people to approach us so we can build a plan of how best we can help them.
“We’re encouraging people to come to us early.
“There’s a number of things we can do, advice, funding pots.”
The officers were asked about the processes of what happens when rough sleepers are reported.
Mr Marsters said: “It’s a personalised approach. It’s not one size fits all.”