No Second Night Out Scheme is Extended
- 14 Dec
London mayor Boris Johnson is expanding the scheme to tackle rough sleeping, and spending an extra £5m on a third hub.
The no second night out scheme will be extended from two hubs to three. A £5 million contract was put out to tender last month, ending the uncertainty for the flagship scheme.
News of the expansion emerged as Mr Johnson admitted he is going to struggle to hit a target of ending rough sleeping by 31 December.
In the tendering document, for the initial stage of bidding, the Greater London Authority noted a rise in rough sleeping, and so as a result of the increase in demand, both hubs have had to close on a number of occasions.
The NSNO project will end as a pilot on 31 May next year and the new contract will run from 1 June 2013 until 31 March 2015.
The GLA also wants a single provider to provide at least 30 temporary bed spaces in total to ensure people are not in the hubs for longer than 72 hours. The project currently has 34 bed spaces.
Mr Johnson earlier this year pledged to end rough sleeping, defined as no-one new to the streets spending a second night there, in the capital by the end of 2012. However, during mayor's question time last month, Mr Johnson said it was very difficult to achieve the end of rough sleeping.
Government-endorsed figures from the database CHAIN for September to October this year showed of the 901 new people to London's streets, 17 per cent spent a second night sleeping rough.
Some 47 per cent (2,696) of the total number of rough sleepers (5,678) spent only one night on the streets in 2011/12 compared with 37 per cent (1,457) out of a total of 3,975 the year before (2010/11).
CHAIN figures also showed a 43 per cent increase in rough sleepers in 2011/12 to 5,678 from the year before.
Source: Inside Housing
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