Cash boost to prevent homelessness across Bournemouth, Poole and Christchurch

Residents who are at risk of becoming homeless or who are homeless, are set to benefit from funding that will boost the number of private rented sector (PRS) landlords who will offer affordable tenancies.

Government funding of £469,000 has been awarded to the Borough of Poole and Bournemouth and Christchurch Councils to encourage more small and medium sized PRS landlords to offer quality tenancies for more single homeless people and other households at risk of being homeless.

There is currently insufficient affordable and social housing across the three areas and so the funding will be used to create around 150 new tenancies to support a further 130 priority-need households by March 2020, reducing the numbers of people living in temporary and B&B accommodation.

The funding will be used to:

• provide incentives for local landlords to provide much needed accommodation for vulnerable tenants.
• enable the social letting agency ‘Homes 4 Let’ to acquire more properties to manage on behalf of landlords
• provide one-to-one tenancy outreach support for people placed by the Council in to new tenancies to help them maintain their tenancy and providing advice on issues such as rent arrears and tenancy breaches.

Councillor Robert Lawton, Cabinet Member for Housing, Bournemouth, said, "This is fantastic news. Our focus now is working closely with local landlords and supporting them so that they can contribute to helping to reduce homelessness in the area. It will also mean less vulnerable people in temporary or emergency accommodation and supporting them to maintain secure tenancies."

Councillor Karen Rampton, Cabinet Member for Housing in Poole, said: "I’m delighted to have been awarded this funding. We can continue to deliver valuable work to prevent homelessness, and develop further support for our more vulnerable residents."

Councillor David Flagg, Christchurch Council, said: "This is a great example of showing how we are already working together across the three council areas and how we can achieve even greater results to prevent homelessness and help the most vulnerable. This bodes well for the work that can be taken forward as part of BCP Council.