A strategy to end rough sleeping and prevent homelessness has been launched by Tower Hamlets Council.
Measures include increasing the social housing stock, improving access to information, and continuing and improving outreach programmes.
Under new legislation the council will have a duty to both prevent and relieve homelessness on top of its existing obligation to re-house people without a home from April.
John Biggs, Mayor of Tower Hamlets, said: “Tackling homelessness is among the most important but challenging tasks facing the council.
“The strategy launched this week builds on a number of recent successes – we’ve seen a reduction in the number of people becoming homeless thanks to our early intervention programmes and our annual street count showed that our work on rough sleeping has led to a significant reduction.
“We are firm in our commitment to preventing homelessness and ultimately ending rough sleeping in Tower Hamlets.”
The government aims to half rough sleeping by 2022 and end it by 2027.
Among recent initiatives the council funded a street psychotherapist, a street nurse and a mental health professional to embed with outreach teams.
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