NO ONE really knows how many rough sleepers there are in Bournemouth and Poole.

But both councils believe numbers are rising.

Last November at the annual count – a snapshot of one night – they counted 48 rough sleepers in Bournemouth. This month they’ll count again.

However, says Caroline Roundhill, housing strategy and policy manager for Bournemouth: “During the summer our outreach service had contact with around 100 rough sleepers – it changes all the time.”

Bournemouth is believed to be no worse than many other places. Informally some rough sleepers have admitted they come here because of happy holiday memories of the area as a child, but the town hit the headlines for all the wrong reasons earlier this year after the death of rough sleeper Kevin Filsell became a national story.

The impression given was that the council in particular and local councils in general were doing little to help people like him, when under the Homelessness Reduction Act of 2017 they have a statutory duty to prevent and to relieve homelessness.

“We see around 15 people who are rough sleeping into supported accommodation every month," said Caroline.

Overall, the council says, around 1,000 people every month walk through the town hall doors with a housing or accommodation problem. Most people receive enough advice to resolve the problem themselves but: “Our aim is to provide a prevention service to stop people ending up with no accommodation and becoming rough sleepers,” said Caroline.

To that end the borough pays out around half a million pounds each year as loans for rent deposits, to help homeless families access private rented property. This helps around 350 families and single people each year.

They have paid out more than £600,000 in 2018 in bridging grant payments – discretionary housing payments – for those struggling to pay their rent. And they fund a number of dedicated housing schemes which are full almost every night, including five young people’s hostels, three emergency hostels for families to avoid them moving into B&B, and they manage a further 100 properties providing temporary move-on accommodation for homeless people.

They have also been spending £45 million buying an additional 340 homes, so far letting 64 properties which have housed 243 people, 127 of whom are children. And this is on top of building 200 more new council homes.

Over in Poole they have a 'rent in advance' scheme to help Poole residents threatened with homelessness, and they run an under-occupation support service to help social housing tenants to move to property that better meets their needs, freeing up housing for families.

Like Poole, Bournemouth’s rough sleepers outreach service is run by the St Mungo’s charity, which operates an ‘assertive engagement model’. “They never stop working creatively to see how they can best help people move into accommodation and receive the right support to do so and to continue,” said Caroline.

They run a drop-in service for rough sleepers and the Housing First project providing "self-contained accommodation alongside intensive wraparound support to house the most complex rough sleepers".

Both councils welcome reports from residents concerned about rough sleepers, ideally via the StreetLink app, calling 0300 500 0914 or emailing b&pstreetoutreach@mungos.org

Members of the public can also volunteer with or make donations to local homelessness charities as a practical alternative to giving money to rough sleepers, which might be spent on drugs.

Enforcement – mainly against nuisance – is used as a last resort but in conjunction with assistance, and Bournemouth has had some notable successes, getting some long-term rough sleepers into supported accommodation.

Like all council officers they would like to see more money from central government, just as they admit there are not enough houses available for those who need them.

However, if solving homelessness was as easy as giving people a key “we’d all be out of a job tomorrow", said Caroline.

If you want to give money donate to the Bournemouth and Poole Rough Sleepers Team (St Mungo’s) who work directly with rough sleepers. Other charities working locally to help rough sleepers include Faithworks Wessex