City hopes to build on strategy to tackle homelessness

A three-year "homelessness strategy" has been drawn up by Sheffield Council with the aim of offering "the right support, at the earliest opportunity" to prevent people losing their home. According to Coun Penny Baker, the authority's cabinet member for housing, the strategy will tackle the "root causes of the problem" and make better emergency accommodation available.

She said: "Becoming homeless can have a traumatic effect on people's mental and physical health and well being, damage their long-term prospects and disrupt their family life.

"It also carries a stigma but most homeless people would not recognise themselves from the stereotypes we are used to hearing about.

"Preventing people from becoming homeless in the first place gives them stability at a difficult time and improves their chances of leading successful lives. And because prevention is more cost-effective, it has a wider benefit to everyone in Sheffield. We have already done some good work in the city but now we need to build on this and make sure that all our services are properly integrated and that the work we do gets to the root of the problem."

The council said the focus over the next three years would be increasingly on young people – 16 and 17-year-olds made up more than 11 per cent of homeless people last year.

Further aims are to end rough sleeping in the city and to reduce the use of temporary accommodation, eliminating the use of bed and breakfast places except in absolute emergencies.

Statistics show that in the financial year 2009/10 just over half of homeless households were families while 42 per cent were single or in a couple.