York's multi-agency, partnership approach to helping rough sleepers was praised by the government today (Thursday, December 12) during a ministerial visit.

Barbara Roche, MP, Minister for Social Exclusion and Equality in the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister, visited the Peasholme Centre on Peasholme Green today (11.30am) to look at its work as a day-time drop-in centre for the homeless and as a rough sleepers' hostel.

The head count for rough sleepers in York has dropped dramatically from 24 to four in the last three years - thanks to the multi-agency, partnership approach led by City of York Council.

Barbara Roche said, "The reduction of rough sleepers on the streets of York shows that the multi-agency approach is working. It is encouraging to see the re-focusing of efforts on preventing rough sleeping, through a coordinated strategy which helps those most at risk."

The council works in partnership with a number of other agencies including the Peasholme Charity, Salvation Army and the York Arclight Project to help homeless people through re-settlement and into permanent homes.

Other partners include the Cornerstones Project, run by the council's Future Prospects jobs and training agency, and the PMS project run by Selby and York Primary Care Trust. Funding comes from various sources but is mainly from the government's Rough Sleepers' Unit.

Lesley Healey, the council's head of housing advice and assessment, said, "The main aim of the partnership is to contact people at risk of, or actually, rough sleeping and work with them effectively to ensure they can keep their existing home or manage the their next settled home."

Today's visit by Barbara Roche - in York to attend the Who Cares? Trust conference on cared for children - follows the launch in April of City of York Council's new strategy to prevent rough sleeping which reviews the progress of work in the partnership so far and sets out the agenda for the future. The strategy focuses on: early identification of rough sleeping risk quick intervention to prevent this or to address it where it occurs resettlement work to enable rough sleepers and single homeless to settle into stable, supported accommodation and supporting rough sleepers to re-build their lives away from the streets working with people at risk of losing accommodation to prevent them becoming rough sleepers Councillor Ruth Potter, the council's executive member for housing, said, "This is an issue we have addressed seriously in York through an holistic, multi-disciplinary approach providing advice and support for homeless people as well as shelter.

"We are continuing to work with a preventative approach to these issues, we want to help people solve their problems before they have to take to the streets." The Rough Sleepers' Unit awarded City of York Council grant funding to pay for the delivery of the strategy with the Salvation Army, York Arclight Project and the Cornerstones project who have all accepted contracts to work with the council to provide a multi-agency approach to prevention and resettlement. Arclight and the Solid Foundations project are both funded through transitional Housing Benefit. Lesley Healey said, "Our approach to rough sleeping encourages people to move off the streets and engage with health, drugs, alcohol and life skills services. "We carry out an assessment of customers' needs and wants and provide a range of activities including one-to-one support, training, education and help to access meaningful occupation including work-related and life skills activities. "Where people can't manage their own home those same service can prevent them becoming homeless." END Notes for Editors: The Peasholme Centre was opened by the old York City Council in 1987 as a night shelter for 22 rough sleepers. The following year, the Peasholme Charity began to run a drop-in during the day from the building. The charity and current owners City of York Council continue to work together to provide shelter, food, advice and support to homeless people. In 1999 the government formed the Rough Sleepers Unit and, as part of their initiative to reduce the number of people sleeping out on the streets, the Arclight Hostel on Leeman Road with up to 38 beds was opened in the December of that year. Between 1999 and March 2002, the Peasholme Charity, York Arclight Project and the Salvation Army received part of their funding from the Government's Rough Sleepers Unit to fund work to reduce the number of people sleeping out - resulting in the fall in the rough sleepers head count.