Prime Minister recognises Portsmouth homelessness services in rough sleeping push
Portsmouth secures £3.1m government funding to help rough sleepers find a route off streets
Portsmouth’s homelessness services have been recognised by the Prime Minister as the council unveils plans to offer rough sleepers a route off the streets.
Portsmouth City Council has been awarded more than £3.1m in government funding to help tackle rough sleeping over the next three years.
It comes after Prime Minister Andy Burnham announced plans to get everyone off the streets by Christmas.
The council has already secured extra space for overnight shelters in the central library and vacant office space owned by a commissioned provider.
Portsmouth has been awarded £3,168,330 through the government’s new Rough Sleeping Programme 2026-29. This includes £1.87m for running services and £1.29m for buying or developing properties.
The council has introduced a range of measures to tackle the issue, benefiting from strong partnerships across the public, voluntary, community and faith sectors.
This work is underpinned by the homelessness partnership board, which brings partners together to collaborate on the city’s homelessness strategy.
Schemes include the rough sleeping hub at 6 Queen Street, which enables people to access accommodation away from the streets.
The council also has its own outreach team, which engages with rough sleepers on the streets, including some who are “the city’s most entrenched and complex rough sleepers, who do not access the Rough Sleeping Hub or other services”.
The council also commissions supported housing for homeless people, comprising 140 units for residents at risk of homelessness or rough sleeping.
The city’s rough sleeping pathway also comprises 85 units of supported temporary accommodation. More than 1,300 placements have been made in the pathway in its first five years.
Councillor Darren Sanders, cabinet member for housing and tackling homelessness, said that while “no one should have to live on the streets”, the council “can’t save everybody”.
“You’ve got to give people a route off the street, not try and get everyone in.”
He said those affected “have been in the hardest of experiences” and that it was right to offer them a route off the streets, but added: “if they don’t want to come, that’s fine, if they feel they can’t come, that’s fine”.
He recounted visiting a rough sleeping summit at the invitation of the Prime Minister, where he discovered “how bad everyone else was – only three London boroughs do the drop-in service that we have on Queen Street”.
“You had respected organisations in the homelessness field going ‘well what’s the route off the street do you have one’ and then we explain what we’ve got they’re going ‘well how do you do that then’ in fact one said ‘don’t tell me this is how Portsmouth does it’ which is thought was mildly impressive.
“This is a really good service, as has been recognised by some bloke in Manchester with glasses.”