North Northamptonshire Homelessness and Rough Sleeping Strategy consultation

We sought feedback on the draft Homelessness and Rough Sleeping Strategy 2024-2029 which sets out how, over the next five years, North Northamptonshire Council will work collaboratively with our partners to build on our existing approach and respond to challenges to tackle and help prevent homelessness and support those who are experiencing or at risk of homelessness. 

In total, 75 people took part in the overall consultation; 65 of those were people who responded to the online survey and 10 were people who took part in the telephone interviews.

48 of those who entered the online survey fully completed it and 17 left the survey unfinished and failed to return before the deadline. Of those 17 people, 5 did not answer any of the questions and therefore have been removed from this analysis which left a total of 70 people. Whilst this is a modest number of respondents, 30% of all participants had lived experience of homelessness and/or rough sleeping. Respondents were asked to read the draft of the Homelessness and Rough Sleeping strategy and then specify to what extent they agreed that each priority should form part of the final strategy.

Overall, people consulted were supportive of the five priorities set out in the strategy. 83% of all respondents strongly agreed / agreed that all five priorities should be included in the final strategy.

The breakdown for each priority was as follows:

• Priority 1 – 89% of respondents agreed this should be included
• Priority 2 – 91% of respondents agreed this should be included
• Priority 3 – 93% of respondents agreed this should be included
• Priority 4 – 93% of respondents agreed this should be included
• Priority 5 – 89% of respondents agreed this should be included

Individuals who were responding to the online survey on behalf of an organisation were asked if they have any further actions or ideas that could be included in the action plan which accompanies the strategy to deliver against the five priorities. The main ideas and themes gathered from these responses are as follows:

• Suggestions of a range of local partners who could be engaged to help deliver the action plan were put forward including S2S, Mind, Service Six, Teamwork Trust, Sure Start Centres, housing developers, private landlords plus any other organisations that may have an interest in supporting actions in the strategy or who could offer resources (e.g.: Supermarkets, banks, large businesses/employers, and the wider community in general).

• A need for a more action based and collaborative approach within the Homelessness Forum as well as sharing more data around aspects of the homelessness service such as the number of households in Temporary Accommodation.

• A suggestion to increase public awareness of homelessness initiatives and schemes in order to encourage support.

The strategy is currently going through the governance process and will be presented for approval by Executive, currently planned for June.

The next steps based on the feedback that was received in the consultation will be to develop a detailed action plan which can be monitored throughout the 5 year period that the strategy covers. We have set the wheels in motion to get the North Northants Homeless Forum back up and running and are currently looking at ways to make this as productive and collaborative as possible. We have created a report of all consultation findings which will feed in to the action plan which underpins the strategy. We plan to develop the action plan with the collaboration of local partners. We are also researching ways to implement lived experience into our service.