Crowded Oxford shelter lets rough sleepers use floor

Published by Julien Tremblin for 24dash.com in Housing

A homeless hostel in Oxford is allowing people to sleep on the floor to cope with the number of rough sleepers looking for temporary accommodation.

Oxford Homeless Pathways, which manages a hostel in the city, says the cold snap has forced the association to offer mattresses and sleeping bags as part of the “Severe Weather beds” scheme.

A spokesperson for the association told 24dash: “When the climate is like this, it’s pretty horrible to imagine anyone sleeping outside. That’s why we offer people a mattress, a sleeping bag, a hot drink and a warm place to sleep.”

Initiated by Oxford City Council, the scheme offers extra funding to allow hostels to provide extra help in the winter months.

Thanks to this, they are getting additional staff which allows them to deal with the rising demand. "We now seem to have just enough provision in Oxford," she said.

Even when there are no weather alerts, the 56 beds at the O’Hanlon House are almost always full.

“The fact that we have a surge of requests these days means that there are still quite a few people out there sleeping rough,” the spokesperson said.

Asked if there were any plans to open new temporary accommodation, she explained that it was unlikely, due to the economic climate.

Following a Freedom of Information request, the BBC revealed today that Oxford City Council spent more than £65,000 in 2011 to put people into emergency accommodation – more than four times as much as it did in 2010.

A temporary shelter scheme in Ipswich, Suffolk, has also warned it was unable to cope with the demand in temporary accommodation, despite extra beds set up in churches. Reverend Paul Daltry told the BBC that 33 individuals have used the shelters but 55 were turned away.