Mayor offers funding to make homeless hostels Covid19 safe

The Mayor of London, Sadiq Khan, is making available a £40m fund to allow homelessness hostels and women’s refuges to make their facilities safer for residents during the Coronavirus pandemic.

The Mayor’s Homelessness Change programme will fund works to remodel existing hostels to make it easier to maintain social distancing and self-isolation, ensure bathroom facilities aren’t shared and help slow any spread of the virus between hostel residents.

A recent survey of the suitability of London’s hostels in the Covid-19 era found that four per cent of bedspaces in the hostels that responded were in shared rooms and around half of residents shared bathroom facilities with other people.*

The Homelessness Change programme supports creative and innovative responses to London’s homelessness crisis by supporting the refurbishment, remodelling or new build of hostels for homeless people, refuges for victims of domestic abuse or shared accommodation for young people who are homeless or at risk of homelessness. The programme has previously supported organisations such as St Mungo’s, Veterans Aid, the YMCA and numerous London housing associations and local authorities.

Homelessness service providers across London have risen to the unique challenges posed by the Coronavirus pandemic but with social distancing and self-isolation requirements set to continue for some time to come, many organisations will be looking at making permanent changes to their hostels. This funding will help them to repurpose existing hostels to make them better suited to the post-Covid19 world. This may include remodelling of communal areas and the addition of en-suites.

Rough sleepers are significantly more likely to have underlying health conditions than the wider population. They are also far less likely to be able to follow public health guidelines to reduce transmission and spread of coronavirus; such as handwashing, self-isolation and social distancing.

This is the latest part of the Mayor’s wide-ranging work to keep London’s rough sleepers safe during the pandemic. More than 1,300 homeless people are currently being supported in hotels and other safe accommodation across London, paid for by the Mayor and the Government. Meanwhile, outreach services have been working around the clock since the crisis started to get people who are on the streets, or sleeping communally in winter night shelters, into safe, secure accommodation.

The Mayor of London, Sadiq Khan, said: “The Coronavirus pandemic has changed so much about how we all live our lives. The most vulnerable Londoners need our support at this time more than ever.

“That’s why I’m delighted that the Homelessness Change programme is able to deliver vital funding to help hostel providers to improve their accommodation.

“Projects funded by this programme in the past have made a substantial and sustained difference to the lives of homeless Londoners and I am confident this funding will have an equally significant impact as we all adjust to a new post-Covid19 world.

“As part of that adjustment, we also need the Government to provide the ongoing funding and support necessary to ensure that we can apply the Mayor’s ‘In for Good’ principles to the people we have helped off the streets into safe accommodation.”

Dr Tom Coffey, Mayoral Health Advisor, said: “This virus presents unique challenges to those working with rough sleepers and I’m pleased to see that the Mayor is making significant funding available to help providers keep homeless Londoners safe and healthy.

“Homeless people need support now more than ever so remodelling and refurbishing hostels to comply with the new Public Health England guidance should be a top priority.”

Kellie Murphy, St Mungo’s Service Director, said: “Safety is always critical for people who are homeless but especially so during this COVID-19 pandemic.

“This Homelessness Change funding will enable organisations to make the kind of changes necessary to ensure people in hostels, refuges and other kinds of shared accommodation can better physically distance and stay safe within those services while, crucially, staying connected with the vital staff on hand to support them.”

Dr Hugh Milroy, CEO of Veterans Aid, said: “A few years ago a financial development contribution from the GLA helped VA to complete a re-development of its own £8.4m facility for homeless veterans in East London - hailed by the Mayor as an ‘inspirational’ model. Thankfully this modernisation went a long way towards enabling us to meet present challenges and, as a result, all current residents are safe and well in a state-of-the-art facility.

“In tandem with this, Veterans Aid has remained operational throughout lockdown. Looking ahead however, I foresee significant problems if funding is not made available to support existing and newly homeless individuals. All parties must use the crisis as an opportunity to build a future that enables us to permanently rid the streets of the scourge of homelessness.”