Town taking positive action to take care of the homeless (From Warrington Guardian)

Town taking positive action to take care of the homeless

WARRINGTON'S homeless are being well looked after by the borough council according to performance tables published by the Government this week.

A pro-active approach designed to start helping people before they actually become homeless is keeping the problem right down.

Whereas other authorities have to house homeless people in bed and breakfast accommodation as a temporary measure on a regular basis, Warrington only had to resort to this measure once during 1997/98.

Warrington Borough Council's Homelessness Manager Susan Shaw said: "It is fairly rare that we use bed and breakfast accommodation. It would have to be an out of hours emergency.

"I think it has a lot to do with the way we deal with applications and the volume of homelessness in the town. I think the reason we perform quite well is because we put a lot of effort into preventative measures. We encourage people not to wait for eviction before coming to us."

The figures released by the Government's Audit Commission show that it takes Warrington Borough Council around 13 days to decide whether to accept people as homeless, less than half the district council average for the north of England.

Warrington lets 18 per cent of its homes to the homeless and 1.3 per cent of its properties are available to rent or need minor repairs, but are standing empty. 0.4 per cent are empty for another reason. When compared with figures for other authorities, these figures are just about average. It also took 10 days for Warrington Borough Council to accept a homeless person as homeless, roughly half the average time for a district authority.

Mrs Shaw added: "We do work well with other departments and the voluntary sector and I would like to think we are fairly approachable."

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