As the Winter weather bites, I often get asked about what help Teignbridge Council provides to those who are homeless or threatened with homelessness, and what you as a member of the public can do to help, if you know of someone that is in that situation. Below some information from Teignbridge District Council.

TDC strongly encourage any person who is homeless or threatened with homelessness to make contact with Housing Services Teignbridge District Council either in person, by phone or email at the earliest opportunity.

Our office hours are 9am-4pm Monday to Friday.

The address is: Teignbridge District Council, Forde House, Brunel Road

Newton Abbot, Devon TQ12 4XX

The contact number is 01626 361101, email housing@teignbridge.gov.uk.

It’s a legal requirement that every local authority operates a homelessness service on an out of hours basis. If you become aware of someone who is homeless, and it is out of normal office hours, please call TDC’s  main contact number 01626 361101.

The call will be transferred through to our duty standby officer who will conduct a telephone assessment to determine whether a placement into emergency accommodation should be made.

The Teignbridge District Council Website also gives details of the services they provide. Please follow the link to ‘Housing’ and then ‘Homelessness Advice’ from the homepage.

https://www.teignbridge.gov.uk/housing/

Under the heading ‘rough sleeping’ there is also a link to StreetLink. This is an online platform that exists to enable members of the public to connect people sleeping rough with local services that can support them.

https://streetlink.force.com/StreetLink_HomePage

When an alert is sent via StreetLink, the details you provide are sent to the local authority or outreach service for the area in which you have seen the person, to help them find the individual and connect them to support.

In the Teignbridge and Exeter areas, the outreach service is called Julian House. Julian House can also be contacted on 01392 284 287, or

exeter-outreach@julianhouse.org.uk

With regards to Winter provision the Council must make provision for rough sleepers during Winter where the forecast is predicted to be below zero degrees for three consecutive days. Where this occurs we will contact all rough sleepers we are aware of and offer them emergency accommodation. Again we would urge anyone concerned about a rough sleeper to advise them to come into the offices at Forde House for an assessment

The 2 food banks (HiTs and THAT) also provide invaluable help to those struggling to make ends meet, plus wider advice help. As always they will be glad of your donations of both food items and money, and if you have some spare time they are always looking for volunteers. Some useful links below.

https://www.facebook.com/hitsfoodbank.org/

https://www.thatfoodbank.com/

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