Scarboroughs rough sleepers to be given ticket out of town

Rough sleepers with no connection to the area would be offered travel vouchers to leave under the draft homelessness strategy presented to the Tory-led council’s housing and property overview and scrutiny committee on 29 March.

The report claims that Scarborough has been experiencing “relatively high levels of inward migration of transient rough sleepers” due to its seaside location – although the council’s first formal count of rough sleepers in October last year revealed just 12. The council wants to halve that number.

The scheme mirrors a pilot project in York last year.

But a regional housing advice service said the idea needed to be treated cautiously and must never be used as a first resort.

Denise Rooney, coordinator for the York and North Yorkshire Housing Advice Research Project, said: “If people want to return to another area then we don’t have a problem with that.

“If this is offered as a first option without exploring what their housing issues or needs are, then we would be a little concerned that people won’t be allowed to progress a housing or homelessness application.

“The person would still have nowhere to live and might need more support.”

The draft report states that the action plan aims to use an “assertive and persistent” approach to discourage rough sleeping. Other proposals include holding regular rough sleeping sweeps to identify homeless people and encourage them to seek help for their problems.

A spokeswoman for Scarborough council said: “The vouchers are one idea that we are looking into. If people, for whatever reason, thought they would come to Scarborough and perhaps thought they would get a job and haven’t got the means to get back to friends and family, giving them a travel ticket or voucher might be one way of helping them get off the streets.”