THE number of homeless people on the streets of Derby has doubled over the past year, a city health worker has said.
Mark Evans works alongside the police and city council in helping the homeless and street drinkers to get housing and support.
He is part of the street drinkers reference group, which meets every six weeks to discuss individual homeless people and action plans put in place to help them.
He said: "Myself, the police and the council discuss our clients and the best ways to help them.
"A majority of street homeless people drink, that goes hand in hand. We've seen double the number of street homeless people in the city in the past 12 months."
Mr Evans said this was down to several factors, including the closure of supported housing at Hartington House, in Hartington Street, and Activ8, in Mount Carmel Street, with the loss of at least 65 beds.
Mr Evans said: "The bedroom tax hasn't helped either, it's made one-bedroom accommodation harder to come by. It's much harder to get homeless people off the streets and into accommodation."
Mr Evans said the lack of housing also impacted on the treatment of alcohol addiction.
He said: "All street drinkers know what services are available to them and how to access them but I believe you have to find accommodation first and then deal with the dependency.
"If you can get someone into accommodation it's going to be easier for a support worker to work with them, compared to when they're on the street."
Sergeant Brian Clifton, who manages the city centre policing team, is also part of the group that meets to tackle street drinking and homelessness.
He said that, as well as improving the lives of homeless people, it had also saved lives.
"The meetings we have are multi-agency and involve people from social care, housing, the council and Padley Centre," he said.
"We use a holistic approach to support people to get into housing and offer them support. It's all about information sharing."
Sgt Clifton said: "For example, at the meeting if someone said 'we haven't seen a particular person for five or six weeks' I could tell them if any of the officers had seen that person."
Sgt Clifton said, although the police obviously have a role in prosecuting homeless people who commit crime, he said their role was not all about enforcement.
He said: "If we meet a new homeless person on the streets we can take their details to the meeting to see if they're using any of the services in the city.
"The police have an active role in engaging with people who don't have the luxury of a nice car and food."
