This week, 27 November – 1 December, Mayor of London Sadiq Khan activated the Severe Weather Emergency Protocol (SWEP) for the first time this winter, instructing councils across the capital to provide extra shelter for people sleeping rough. This decision comes as temperatures dropped below zero degrees, posing increased risks to those sleeping rough on the streets.

In response, our outreach teams have been actively working to ensure that everyone has a place to stay away from the freezing temperatures. 

“We encourage members of the public to make referrals of anyone they see sleeping rough to Streetlink, who contact our outreach teams directly and quickly. During SWEP we put out additional outreach shifts, so that anticipated increased demand can be met.”  

– Thames Reach Director of Services

As we navigate through the winter, we will continue to find the fastest routes away from the streets for the people we support, prioritising safety during extreme weather conditions. 

It is important to recognise that, while SWEP provides a vital immediate response to help those sleeping rough, it does not address the root causes of rough sleeping. A more comprehensive approach is required, involving tailored support and assistance to address the complex issues individuals sleeping on the street face. 

Learn more about the projects and services run by Thames Reach helping to end rough sleeping in London: https://thamesreach.org.uk/what-we-do/ 

Deptford Reach has been at the heart of the community in Lewisham for many years. During the early stages of the pandemic, the building had to close, but instead of ceasing services, this became an opportunity to expand beyond the building the team are ordinarily based in, to reach more people in need around the borough. Its lead manager, Jordan, discusses the essential work they do in the community.

In Deptford Reach’s current working model, how are you working with people who have been using your service for a while, and members of the wider community?  

At present we have three main areas we focus on: a rough sleepers support hub; advice and case work, and health and wellbeing. The Deptford Reach building provides space and respite for people experiencing homelessness, and there they can access advice and facilities such as showers and laundry. The health part is really important, and once a week we have visits from a dentist, nurse, GP and drug and alcohol support workers. We also help people get access to their own GP practice to help people resettle into their community.

Can you tell us about the prevention aspect of Deptford Reach and how this works?

Prevention is important, and we are always looking for new ways to get to people before homelessness occurs. As part of the advice service, we offer advice and casework in, benefits, debt, arrears, housing advice, tenancy sustainment, homelessness and other general advice. Monday to Friday we are in the building, and members of our team attend food banks across Lewisham as well. From the new year, the centre will be shut on Fridays, with staff based in the women’s sanctuary at the local 999 Club and food banks. We attend a different food bank every day of the week to provide a drop-in advice service. Expanding this service means we can engage with people who would otherwise not come to a building-based service; it definitely makes it more accessible.

Does the service change at all in winter and cold weather?

Our rough sleepers support hub is usually extended for a few more hours to make sure people have the support they need and don’t go into freezing temperatures early in the morning. There is always a bigger demand in winter with added urgency to be accommodated and higher engagement levels. As for this year, the new variant has meant that more people who had been sofa-surfing are coming to us needing advice and emergency accommodation.

As you work with people at different stages of exposure to homelessness (prevention, intervention, recovery), do you find that you are using the Hard to Reach Fund to support people’s move-on journey?

We often have a need for it, widely for people resettling and allowing people to engage, with both us and other networks in their lives. So housing items and furniture, or everyday items such as Oyster cards, phones and credit.

Looking towards 2022, what does the future hold for your work?

We are working with Thames Reach’s Employment and Skills team to offer help accessing education and employment; financial resilience; digital skills, and ESOL (English for Speakers of Other Languages) to people who use our services, whether in the building or in our outreach work. When we work outside of the Deptford Reach base, the community does not lose out on services, and we are expanding our reach of people needing our help. We have a women’s group and an art group at the moment but we’re minimising activities in the building, so we have more scope to reach people elsewhere in the community in different locations. As we’re focused on prevention and sustainment, everything will be based around advice, so we can support people towards independency as much as possible in the long-term. At the moment we are collecting data to see where the needs are in the local community.

During winter, freezing cold temperatures make sleeping rough even more life-threatening. Whilst street homelessness is always dangerous and traumatic, there are extra statutory provisions called SWEP (Severe Weather Protocol), implemented when the ground temperature drops to zero degrees. This increases the temporary accommodation options that are available for our outreach teams to move people away from the streets, and prevent the dangers of sleeping outside in freezing temperatures. However, this will not solve the wider and ongoing causes of street homelessness. Tailored support is still required to understand, and address, the causes of an individual’s homelessness.

Liam is a support worker in our City Outreach team. He shares his experiences of helping people in the square mile once temperatures drop to dangerous levels:

“Thames Reach have been running the City Outreach service for just over a year, so we’re quite a new team but it’s really encouraging that we can help people off the streets in the City. We have outreach shifts every day, and as a team we work with new referrals ourselves, helping people get into emergency accommodation or the City assessment centre.

“With the temperature dropping significantly in recent days and weeks, and the Severe Weather Protocol (SWEP) being activated, we have been having a big push to get as many people off the streets as possible, so there’s a big positive movement in that sense. It’s good to see a lot of the people who have been entrenched on the streets for a long time being offered accommodation and support, so we’re really proud of that.

“We use the Hard to Reach Fund every day in our team; we have money to help people in the process of moving on with their lives. The most common thing we spend money on is phones so we can stay in touch with people. If someone is staying in a hostel, it’s easy to contact them but if they are on the streets it is much harder. We also provide food and shopping vouchers for people moving into accommodation; we don’t just drop them off, we make sure they are supported.

“Although we’re a new team, working with the City of London has been brilliant, we’ve been able to get people into hotels instantly with SWEP, which is great on many levels. Most of our work with people is done on the streets, which isn’t ideal; it’s so much easier to have a real conversation with someone and work on their recovery when they’re somewhere comfortable and can have a cup of tea. When we are getting people into temporary accommodation for the time being, we are able to assign them a support worker who can check in on them regularly and help them work out their next steps.”

Your donations can help us support people to come off the streets for good, and make the recovery journey tailored to the individual. 

During winter, freezing cold temperatures make sleeping rough even more life-threatening. Whilst street homelessness is always dangerous and traumatic, there are extra statutory provisions called SWEP (Severe Weather Protocol), implemented when the ground temperature drops to zero degrees. This increases the temporary accommodation options that are available for our outreach teams to move people away from the streets, and prevent the dangers of sleeping outside in freezing temperatures. However, this will not solve the wider and ongoing causes of street homelessness. Tailored support is still required to understand, and address, the causes of an individual’s homelessness.

Our director of operations Catherine Parsons discusses this in detail:

“With COVID restrictions still in place, our commissioners have made changes to the emergency accommodation they are providing. Local authorities need to be assured that we are COVID-safe; they aren’t providing the same numbers of bed spaces, so as with all year round, prevention is key.

“Last year, several councils had bought up bed spaces in hotels, which was simpler then as tourism wasn’t happening at all. That will be happening to some extent again this year, but there are concerns about availability, as well as sustainability; for people with complex needs, helping them off the streets and into a B&B without support may not be suitable.

“There is funding in several boroughs to provide support once people have been moved into temporary accommodation, for example that’s what our Move-On team in Ealing are doing; it’s crucial that people aren’t left to go back to the streets once the temperatures rise again.

“The public health advice regarding bed spaces in these temporary locations is the same as last year, emphasising the use of lateral flow testing and housing people in ‘bubbles’. Testing is really important, and services are also encouraging and signposting to vaccinations.

“We encourage members of the public to make referrals of anyone they see sleeping rough to Streetlink, who contact our outreach teams directly and quickly. During SWEP we put out additional outreach shifts, so that anticipated increased demand can be met.

“Ultimately, we work in the same way that we do year-round. It’s extra awareness and funding from not only commissioners but the public (as they are more attuned to the dangers of rough sleeping when it is freezing cold) which ensures that we can do our best work helping people off the streets.”