Liverpool awarded £6m to curb homelessness
The council aims to spend the Government funding on delivering 160 one-bedroom apartments for rough sleepers by the end of next March.
Liverpool City Council is eyeing the acquisition of up to 40 one-bedroom apartments from the private rented sector, scheduled to be available from February 2021.
The council also wants to buy a site in the city’s Central Ward with en-suite bedrooms and clustered kitchen and lounge facilities, which will provide accommodation for stays of up to six-months.
The funding was awarded from the Government’s Next Steps Accommodation Programme, a £265m fund aimed at reducing homelessness across the country by increasing the amount of specialist accommodation.
The programme is split between short- and long-term objectives. A total of £105m is available for interim support for rough sleepers, including short-term accommodation, and a further £160m is available for longer-term housing solutions.
On top of the £6m from Whitehall, Liverpool City Council plans to contribute almost £8m of match funding towards the initiatives.
Additionally, the council also supported housing associations Onward Homes and Riverside Housing in their bid to the Next Steps Accommodation Programme, to help fund a project to convert 20 two-bedroom properties into one-bedroom units.
A decision on that bid has not yet been made but it is likely to be approved, Liverpool City Council said in a report.
Great news for Liverpool. 160 new 1 bed appartments for the homeless. We need all the council’s to take note of this and provide for all the homeless people everywhere in the UK. This is the year 2020, there should be no homeless at all.
By Darren born bred.
Actually I think this is going to be a catastrophe for the city.
Firstly, that the council can be eyeing procuring so many one bed apartments from the private sector shows how badly the local area has been developed with unwanted office to residential developments. Questions need to be asked as to whose pockets this money will go into.
Secondly, people with drug and alcohol problems already cluster around the existing facilities (the youth hostel). The problems this has caused around the city centre will be amplified. People with these kinds of issues cannot get a break when it’s all they are surrounded by.
Thirdly, our city centre is already on its knees as a place to live and work. Dublin went down this very route decades ago, and now the crime on the Luas and north side of the river are frequent news items.
If this end up in a building that a decade ago was bristling with Liverpool businesses, it will be a real slap in the face.
By Mike