HOMELESS teams across Worcester have welcomed the news that Job centres will soon benefit from an extra three million pounds.

The new funding will see Jobcentre staff joining outreach teams on the streets to speak to people sleeping rough, helping them to claim their benefits, find new work, secure stable accommodation and direct them to additional support.

On behalf of Worcester Cares Steering Group, Jonathan Sutton CEO at St Paul’s Hostel said: “We are working towards our vision where Worcester City is a place where homelessness is rare, brief and seldom recurring and if this initiative comes to Worcester it would be an opportunity to work even more closely with colleagues in the local Job Centre.

“But let’s not forget homelessness is not always about changing just one thing – a person’s employment or even finding them a roof. Experience demonstrates it is often necessary to improve their access to services that tackle to root causes of poor mental and physical health, fund good quality and sufficient emergency accommodation and well trained outreach services who make connections with rough sleepers.”

Figures released by the government in December showed the number of households considered newly homeless or at risk of becoming so increased by 11.4% across England over the previous 12 months..

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Minister for Welfare Delivery, Will Quince, said: “We are determined to help anyone experiencing homelessness, and if this means getting staff out of the Jobcentre to speak to people on the street directly then we will do that."

“There’s a huge amount of support available to help people who are homeless, but they often don’t know about the support they can access. So we’re going out and taking the help to them, through outreach programmes and closer working with homelessness charities.”

The new funding will be delivered in 2020/2021.

As of yet it is not known how Worcester Job Centre will benefit from the fund.