Portsmouth rough sleepers moved from hotels to student flats

A homeless outreach centre will be hosted in Kingsway House in addition to accommodation

Dozens of rough sleepers living in hotels during the coronavirus pandemic have been moved to former student accommodation, a council has said.

More than 80 people have been rehoused in three empty students blocks, bought by Portsmouth City Council.

The council said "extensive" work was carried out at The Registry, Elm Grove Library and Kingsway House to make them suitable for housing the homeless.

It has also agreed to host a homeless outreach centre from Kingsway House.

This includes moving support services from Yew House, according to the Local Democracy Reporting Service.

The purchase of the former student blocks was funded through a £4.6m government grant.

Some of Portsmouth's rough sleepers have been living at the Ibis Hotel on Fratton Way since the coronavirus crisis began

More than 200 rough sleepers were living in hotels in the city since the Covid-19 crisis began, Portsmouth City Council said in September.

By then around 100 had already moved to private rented accommodation or shared housing.

Council housing lead, Darren Sanders, said the council was now "a world away" from the approach it had to homelessness in 2017.

Describing the council's efforts to reduce homelessness as "successful", he said: "To my mind, this is one of the best things this council has done in years and I'm delighted to have been a part of it."

Cal Corkery, Labour's spokesman for housing, said while the project "made sense", preparations needed to be made to continue it beyond the end of the 2024 funding period.

"But I'm curious about the long-term funding for the service," he explained.

"There is funding in place until 2024 but we need to prepare ourselves for the ongoing costs to sustain it."