Winter Shelter

We are looking to be able to use a building for a night shelter for up to 30 residents - to be available as soon as is practicable. One of the most crucial steps in helping someone to find a route off the streets is to help them access a shelter.

There are 80 shelter beds in the city and an additional 42 beds open during the winter but in the last snapshot count in July, there were still another 130 people sleeping on the streets. There is a clear need for more shelter beds in the city.

The shelter provision would need to be able to provide accommodation space that could be only available as a night shelter (10pm - 8am) or could provide 24 hour staffing provision. Likely to be dorm style - but depends on building available.

As a minimum it will need to provide: • access to toilets and basic shower facilities • simple kitchenette area for making drinks • some communal & basic storage space (eg to locate lockers ) The building needs to meet building regulations for residential use. The cost of any required building work needs to be clarified in proposal and indication of whether this will be an additional pressure on funding requirement.

Dependant on existing planning consent on the building use, new planning approval to run as a shelter may be required. Proposed staffing structure would need to be clarified in your submission - to include proposals on how volunteers could be utilised.

The needs of people using the shelter will be assessed to minimise community disruption before referral to the shelter. Housing benefit may be applicable in certain circumstances.

We are looking to get a shelter up and running as soon as possible - opening this winter and funded until at least March 31st 2021 n.b. If this generates sufficient interest from the market we will need to consider going out for a formal process to purchase this service.