£780k government grant to help house Coventry's homeless in hotel over winter

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£780k government grant to help house Coventry's homeless in hotel over winter

Postby dutchman » Mon Sep 21, 2020 5:41 am

It is one of five hotels the council has used since the pandemic

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A £782,000 government grant will help house rough sleepers at a Coventry hotel over winter.

Days Hotel, on Holyhead Road, is one of five hotels used by the council since the pandemic began to house the city’s homeless as part of the government’s ‘Everyone In’ scheme.

Coventry City Council has been handed an additional cash grant from the government which will ensure it can continue to be used over the winter months, the council has said.

Since the Covid-19 outbreak, 223 people who would have been sleeping rough or in a night shelter have been put in hotels and B&Bs, with 91 moving onto longer-term accommodation.

In the first two months alone, 45 people were placed at the three-star Days Hotel at a cost of £107,475.

The new funding will be used in part to continue this with a “wrap-around support package” in place to support those who move in.

Cllr David Welsh, the new cabinet member for housing, said the end goal was to move them onto permanent accommodation.

“I see this as a real positive,” he told a council meeting on Thursday, September 17.

“The number of partners we have actually providing support at the Days Hotel will be significant and it’s not just one or two things, there really is a wrap-around support package there which is amazing.

“It is a real opportunity to change people’s lives and we are really making the most of it.”

The money is part of a new tranche of £105m funding distributed by the government to councils with Coventry’s receiving “the highest amount in the West Midlands”, according to Cllr Welsh.

As well as funding for temporary accommodation, money will also be used to make changes at Salvation Army facilities to help with Covid-19 social distancing rules, he added.

Coventry council has now been given around £25m from the government to cope with extra Covid-19 cost pressures.

The council’s housing and homelessness service is currently forecast to spend around £13m this year with additional expenditure due to the impact of Covid-19 expected to be £1.3m, a report to councillors said on Thursday.

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