Aims and Methods

HOP’s Street Outreach Team, comprising three full-time staff, provides an on-street outreach service in Edinburgh seven days a week, 365 days a year. Our main goals are to find and engage with rough sleepers who are not currently accessing any welfare services, and encourage them to accept assistance in seeking accommodation. Priority is given to those individuals most at risk, and least likely to seek help for themselves. Many services are provided directly by HOP, others by referral to outside agencies. We always respond to crisis situations immediately, and can provide basic support, advice and information at any time.

Street Outreach Team members work pro-actively, persistently and flexibly with clients, offering support, encouragement and advice according to their circumstances and wishes. The aim is to engage personally with each client, in order to begin the informal, holistic and often lengthy process of assessing their needs, and then accessing relevant services. Advocacy is also central to our work, taking place at many different levels both within HOP itself, and in dealing with other agencies to which clients may be referred.

Bed, Board and Beyond

We have a strong relationship with all Edinburgh’s homeless hostels and shelters, as well as round-the-clock access to the council’s Housing Department, enabling us to find vacancies quickly and easily. If clients choose to continue rough sleeping, we provide advice on staying safe and warm, and distribute hats, gloves and sleeping-bags during winter. For those moving into accommodation, Street Outreach Team staff keep fully up to date with relevant local and national legislation, and can advise clients on complex housing issues.

We also maintain an expert knowledge of the welfare benefits system, and can carry out on-street checks to ensure that clients are receiving all entitlements. We normally accompany clients on visits to benefit offices, and provide representation throughout the often complex process of appeals and tribunals, with all preparatory work undertaken at street level where necessary.

The Street Outreach Team will continue to support clients for as long as they need us, which can be long after they have left the streets: HOP never “closes a case”. A substantial proportion of our time is spent in assisting longer-term clients to establish new tenancies and access other sources of support, in order to sustain them in accommodation.

Healthcare and Harm Reduction

Despite presenting with a range of complex health issues, many HOP clients have lost contact with mainstream health services. We encourage all clients to access basic health care, and offer help in arranging appointments, accompanying surgery visits, and managing any follow-up. The Edinburgh Homeless Practice specialises in primary health provision for homeless people, and we support many clients in using these services. We also offer on-street advice regarding sexual health and nutrition, and help in obtaining food and clothing. If we have concerns regarding a client’s mental health, we can call on immediate specialist support from HOP’s Mental Health team.

Given the high proportion of HOP clients experiencing problems with drug and/or alcohol dependency, we operate three specialist street outreach shifts each week, in conjunction with our own Addictions Team and NHS Lothian’s Harm Reduction Team. This provides our most chaotic clients with on-street access to mainstream addiction services. Every street outreach shift carries clean needles, along with a full range of sterile, safe, single-use materials for the injecting drug-user. We also provide street-level advice on safer injecting and combating blood-borne viruses.

 

 

Rough Sleepers Headcount

24/01/2008

On the evening of the 21st June 2007, we conducted our 10th annual Rough Sleepers’ Headcount. The count is an overnight “snapshot” of the number of individuals sleeping rough in Edinburgh City Centre.

The Headcount has been a yearly event, conducted by HOP since 1997. It involves 22 experienced outreach workers thoroughly searching all of the city centre’s streets, lanes and closes, along with all accessible public gardens and basements. The search is organised by dividing the city centre into several carefully mapped out areas.

We recognise that this type of survey has its limitations. This is because rough sleeping, by its very nature, is a private activity where individuals try to seek shelter where they cannot be easily spotted. Rough sleepers also tend to seek shelter in sites that are not accessible to the Headcount Team, such as locked gardens, private property and stairwells. For these reasons, it is impossible to count all rough sleepers in the city centre. However, the Homeless Outreach Project has its own Street Outreach Team that works with rough sleepers 365 days of the year. The Street Outreach Workers are able to combine their own ...