PLANS to continue housing homeless people in properties in Newquay, Camborne and Falmouth have been approved.

Cornwall Council has awarded five-year contracts with options to extend for a further five years to the value of £3,538,231 to Cosgarne Hall Ltd to support homeless clients at the Escape on Mount Wise in Newquay, Midway at Dracaena Avenue in Falmouth and Roskear in Camborne subject to the decision being called in.

The Short Term Accommodation and Resettlement scheme (STAR) provides housing related support to residents for six months within the project and move-on support for up to 12 weeks.

The Escape, which provides 20 self-contained rooms, Midway five self-contained rooms for females only and Roskear 11 self-contained rooms, provide the STAR service for up to 72 people annually.

The contract is dependent on continued successful bids for Rough Sleeper Accommodation Programme grant funding. The contract allows for six-monthly break clauses to protect the council, should the funding cease for whatever reason.

A spokesperson for Cornwall Council said: “The STAR project is an element of the council’s wider homelessness and rough-sleeper strategy, aimed at benefitting clients who are former rough sleepers, providing them with the skills and education to prepare them for independent living.

“The homelessness and rough sleeping situation across Cornwall was brought into sharp contrast during the pandemic and during the Government’s ‘Everyone in’ campaign.

“The STAR contracts enable the Council to provide relevant short-term accommodation for rough sleepers, and those threatened with homelessness, delivering housing-related support to promote independent living, and move- on to more settled accommodation, where further support may be provided for up to 12 weeks to promote sustainable independent living.

“Providing clients in this cohort with the stability of accommodation, albeit for only six months, coupled with tailored housing related support to promote independent living, will reduce reliance on the emergency services, and will benefit communities accordingly.

“A number of risks have been identified in the business case.

“If the contract awards are not approved, there is a risk that vulnerable people sleeping rough will not be able to access short-term accommodation with attached support, resulting in them remaining on the streets or at risk of rough sleeping

“There is a risk that if the contract awards are not approved, this will lead to Government funding currently allocated for the delivery of STAR being surplus to requirements, resulting in Cornwall losing the funding, with the Government ‘clawing’ it back

“There is a risk that successful support providers fail to deliver the service in accordance with the specification, leading to a poor service for vulnerable people, resulting in failure to move into independent living. This is mitigated through robust contract management.

“There is a risk that the successful providers are unable to access the accommodation used to currently deliver the STAR support contracts, for the duration of the new contracts. This is mitigated through robust and on-going discussions with the owners of the accommodation.”