Resource Centre for People who are Rough Sleeping

Concepts

• resource centre
• resource centre for people
• health and social work
• leeds
• leeds city centre
• centre staff
• people
• rough sleeping
• laundry facilities
• open door' drop

Location

Leeds

Description

The service is an 'open door' drop-in information and advice service for people who are homeless, rough sleeping or vulnerably housed. The centre is central and accessible to Leeds City Centre and offers shower and laundry facilities and access to clean clothing to maintain dignity, providing clean towels and toiletries all day within the working week. Food is provided through the popular Breakfast Club. There is a 'safe mail address' that can be accessed by those rough sleeping or vulnerably housed. The centre staff engage with people to assist them into accommodation and support them to access services for their health and care needs. The centre also enables the co-location of other services, including Forward Leeds, Bevan Healthcare, Beacon, Leeds Housing Options, Mental Health Homeless Team and Basis Yorkshire amongst others.

Award Detail

CPV Codes

• 85000000 - Health and social work services

Indicators

• Award on basis of price and quality.

Legal Justification

Following a review of service provision and available procurement options, it is considered that only St. Anne's Community Services can meet our requirements to deliver these services and approval has been granted to enter into a negotiated procurement process with the provider. The negotiated procedure without prior publication of a notice under Regulation 32 (2) (b) (ii) of the Public Contracts Regulations 2015 will be used when awarding the contract to St Anne's Community Services. The service currently benefits from being located in the same building as the York Street Medical Practice, commissioned by Leeds Clinical Commissioning Group (CCG) and run by Bevan Healthcare, which serves people who are rough sleeping. Staff from either service are able to easily arrange support from the other whilst the client is in the building. In the last few years, there has been a city ambition to provide a "health and wellbeing hub" for people who are, or who are at risk of, rough sleeping. This would include a range of services to provide a one stop shop for health and wellbeing. Discussions have been ongoing at a city level about how this might be achieved, but there are no plans in place yet. Independently of this, Bevan have approached St Anne's about using more of the building to expand their offer. They have reached an agreement whereby Bevan Healthcare will utilise the 2nd floor as well as the current ground floor space. Capital funding will be available to refurbish the building as part of the agreement. St Anne's will continue to have the use of the 1st floor, where the Resource Centre is situated. This provides an ideal opportunity to realise the ambition of the health and wellbeing hub within the York Street building with minimal investment required from LCC, by continuing the support provided through the Resource Centre in its present location and alongside a broader health offer. It will enable the current benefits of co-location of homelessness and health support to continue and be enhanced. Co-located multi-agency support has been shown to be incredibly valuable throughout the Covid-19 response, where a number of services have allocated staff to provide wrap-around support to those staying in the emergency accommodation within hotels. This has resulted in greatly increased levels of engagement from clients, who have seen better outcomes for both their housing and health issues. This approach was implemented following feedback from clients in the early months of the pandemic, who had said that they wanted support in one place. Where services are delivered from different sites, there can be a risk that clients disengage and do not receive the support they need. The current location is well known to clients as being a safe space from which they can access support. St Anne's have been consulted about the possibility of making the building available should another provider be appointed. To date, it is not certain that this option would be available. If they were to agree, the new provider would have to pay rent, which is not currently required in the budget. This would take a substantial amount from an already tight budget away from front-line delivery. It is therefore considered that St Anne's Community Services is the only provider that can deliver the service in accordance with the specification and within the maximum available budget for the service. The negotiated procedure without prior publication of a notice under Regulation 32 (2) (b) (ii) of the Public Contracts Regulations 2015 will therefore be used when entering into a contract for the provision of these services.