Press Release

3 November 2022

Fareham Borough Council Homeless Help

Fareham Borough Council is pleased to present a raft of services available to support homeless people in the Borough, following the launch of its crowdfunding scheme trial.

Around 1,600 people approach the Council for housing assistance each year, and around half of these are owed a duty by the Council to prevent or relieve their homelessness. The main causes of homelessness in the Borough is the ending of a private rented tenancy, followed by family or friends no longer being willing to accommodate individuals.

A crowdfunding trial scheme has been set up with online platform Beam and aims to support 10 homeless people for a year.  Each individual will be referred to the scheme through the Councils' housing teams, given a caseworker to match them with employers, and help them with job interview skills and applications. The crowdfunding element will not only pay for the caseworker support, but will also cover the individual’s expenses associated with finding employment and housing, such as training, travel, and rent deposits.

This scheme is the latest in a long line of homeless support provided by Fareham Borough Council. It has recently converted or refurbished a number of properties throughout the Borough to provide homes for the homeless, including a large property providing nine rooms for households in emergency situations and five self-contained studio flats for former rough sleepers.

It has also, not only recruited a mental health outreach practitioner using funding made available from the Government’s Rough Sleeping Initiative, but is also working with Gosport Borough Council to provide a free Family Mediation Service aimed at supporting young adults at risk of homelessness.

Councillor Connie Hockley, executive member for housing, said: "We are committed to helping rough sleepers throughout the Borough, but also to preventing those at risk from becoming homeless in the first place. Prevention is always the best course of action, and I am very proud of the wide range of services we provide to prevent anyone feeling as though they have no option but to sleep rough. I encourage anyone who is homeless or threatened with homelessness to contact us without delay"

You can find more on the Council’s work to prevent homelessness here: www.fareham.gov.uk/housing/homelessness/intro.aspx

ENDS

For further information contact:

Customer Enquiries

Tel: 01329 236100
Email: customerservicecentre@fareham.gov.uk

Media Enquiries

The Communications Team
Tel: 01329 824310
Email: publicity@fareham.gov.uk
Fax: 01329 550576

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