Dealing with the impacts of the ongoing pandemic and its impact on homeless people is of utmost relevance so instead of our usual Home Page I will include the content of our most recent weekly bulletin and links to previous ones.

State of Play

Previous bulletins have focussed very much on the immediate response across the city to the impact of COVID-19 on homeless people.

That immediate response is still generating some new issues but is largely stable with only minor changes to report and still 280 people in temporary hotel accommodation.

This Bristol Cable article provides a neat segue into …….

What happens next?

As “lockdown” eases across the country but the risks of COVID-19 remain there are more questions than answers about the future. But the questions are starting to be asked as people try to understand how we will (slowly) transition back to a new normal.

In Bristol there is a review of  Bristol’s Rough Sleeping and Homelessness Strategy in light of the Covid-19 response and many feel this  should give priority to preventing return to the levels of rough sleeping that we had in Bristol prior to the crisis

Homeless Link have been broadcasting weekly Webinars which have followed the issues COVID-19 has raised for homeless people and those supporting them.

The 20 May webinar interviews Jeremy Swain from the MHCLG and this does address some of the questions that are being raised around resourcing and national government approach to homelessness. It also references their #EveryoneInForGood campaign.

This week the webinar on 27 May dealt with some of the confusion and timings of recent announcements about funding for homelessness.

A lot is resting on the briefings people are expecting nationally and locally on 2nd June which may indicate how some of the ‘hopes & intents’ are translated into properly resourced solutions.

Other Links I’ve found useful this week :-

• Guardian Article on rough sleeper funding
• Sign up to Government briefings on COVID-19
• A Twitter commitment from Robert Jenrick
• Useful resources on homeless health

& an image stolen from Crisis that reflects what we mostly know, that ending homelessness isn’t just about housing. Click to get involved.

Recent Bulletins

For the bulletin dated May 29th Click Here

For the bulletin dated May 22nd Click Here

For the bulletin dated May 15th Click Here

For the bulletin dated May 8th Click Here

For the bulletin dated May 1st Click Here

For the bulletin dated April 24th Click Here

For the bulletin dated April 17th Click Here

For the bulletin dated April 10th Click Here

For the bulletin dated April 3rd Click Here

For the bulletin dated March 27th Click Here

Other news

• If you want to get an understanding of what’s happening in the homeless sector nationwide, Homeless Link are running a weekly webinar on Wednesday afternoons 3-4pm. Catchup here
• Centre for Homelessness Impact also running an interesting series of blogs & webinars on their site here.

Want to join the forum?

Bristol Homeless Forum is open to any individual or organisation working with the issues of people who are homeless in Bristol. While there is much attention to those who are currently street homeless or rough sleeping we recognise that this is only a small, visible part of a much wider issue which affects many more people.

See our welcome flyer for information about joining the forum & to join just click  Subscribe to join and receive invitations to future events. This will add your given email address to our MailChimp distribution list and will only be used to issue emails from this site and invite you to relevant events. You can unsubscribe at any time.

If you have something to say feel free to use the comments sections throughout the site.

See the Top Menu ‘Useful Links’ for links to organisations in the forum (& a few others who haven’t joined yet).