Number of households temporarily accommodated within Denbighshire sees significant reduction
The transformation of delivering homelessness services has been a key focus for the Council over the last four years and a ‘One Council’ approach to Rapid Rehousing has been adopted.
Part of this transformational work has seen the implementation of a Multi-Disciplinary Prevention Team, with allied professionals working directly within the team, with a focus on delivering a ‘person centred’ homelessness service. This has resulted in a significant reduction in the number of households that are temporarily accommodated in Hotels and B&B’s.
This figure peaked in November 2023 at 220, however, by implementing this approach, the number of households accommodated in Hotels and B&Bs has almost halved, and now sits at 120 households.
Additionally, the Council has supported 45 households to find permanent housing solutions during the same period.
Councillor Rhys Thomas, Lead Member for Housing & Communities said:
“For the last four years, homelessness services have been a key focus for the Council, and I feel these figures are a testament to the hard work of the service.
“The work on the Rapid Rehousing model and delivering support services with partners has been paramount to the success of this approach. The Rapid Rehousing approach has been a transformational change for the Homelessness Service and focuses on preventing people losing their home. When this does happen, we quickly support people to find and keep a new home.
“A person-centred approach provides the support needed to address the causes of homelessness. This allows us to be able to provide help to secure and maintain a tenancy. This is key to how the Homelessness Prevention Team operate.
“In line with Welsh Government, Denbighshire County Council is committed to ensuring homelessness is rare, brief, and unrepeated.
“We are proud to have been able to support so many people to get out of hotel & B&B style accommodation, but we recognise that there is more work to be done.”