Wealden District Council

Homelessness Rough Sleeping Strategy 2024-29

The Council is required by the Homelessness Act 2002 to produce and monitor a Homelessness Strategy.

The legal definition of homelessness is: a household who has no home in the UK or anywhere else in the world available and reasonable to occupy.

Rough sleepers are defined for the purposes of rough sleeping counts and estimates as:

  • people sleeping, about to bed down (sitting on/in or standing next to their bedding) or actually bedded down in the open air (such as on the streets, in tents, doorways, parks, bus shelters or encampments)
  • people in buildings or other places not designed for habitation (such as stairwells, barns, sheds, car parks, cars, derelict boats, stations, or ‘bashes’).

Our Strategy outlines the framework to inform the District Council’s approach to preventing homelessness, in all its forms, and to address the causes of homelessness. The effects of the COVID-19 pandemic are far reaching with financial hardship experienced by many, compounded by the emergent cost of living crisis. This strategy sets out the Council’s approach to continuing effective service delivery to meet the needs of those at risk of homelessness within the district and has been developed from the findings contained in the Review for Homelessness.

The Strategy’s key priorities are to:

  • Improve access to early housing advice and homelessness prevention services;
  • Take action to prevent and end rough sleeping in Wealden;
  • Take action to establish greater local collaboration between services and partners.

This Strategy sets out how the Council will meet its priorities having regard to current legislation and available funding.