Upfront investment into the council’s Housing Service has proved highly successful in its work to prevent and tackle all forms of homelessness.

Much of this has been achieved by expanding our prevention offer and ensuring appropriate services and pathways are in place to meet the needs of our citizens. We have specifically invested in an early intervention team which targets those who may be at risk of homelessness.

Not only has this made a significant difference in providing that upstream early help, but it also helps mitigate the need for us acting at crisis point, which is crucial.

This approach has enabled us to significantly reduce the use of temporary accommodation, including Bed and Breakfast hotels. As a result, our Temporary Accommodation (TA) numbers have reduced from a high of nearly 400, two years ago to 180 currently, a reduction of over 50%, which compares favourably nationally which has seen an increase of approximately 25%. This has also enabled us to all but eradicate the use of Bed and Breakfast hotels for families.

One of our most successful prevention initiatives as been our Key4Me scheme.

Our new enhanced offer to landlords, the Key4Me scheme, has been very successful. Earlier this summer we hit a milestone of 100 households, who were at risk of becoming homeless or currently homeless in our temporary accommodation, having their situation resolved.

Their work has helped see our homelessness prevention rate rising to 80%. This means that we can help four out of five people coming to us with homeless concerns.

Our figures, published in the most recent quarterly statistics released by the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government (MCHLG), are far higher those Councils in the Southwest (54.5%) and national (England 51.4%).

Our work to reduce homelessness includes tackling rough sleeping. Our autumn 2024 count showed 15 people were recorded as sleeping rough in the Dorset Council area, unchanged from the previous year. This compares to the national picture, where rough sleeping rose by 20%.

Councillor Gill Taylor, Cabinet lead of Housing, Health and Community Safety, welcomed the progress being made but stressed there was more to do: “These figures reflect the impact of Dorset’s proactive approach to homelessness prevention, supported by strong partnerships with organisations such as Shelter, Julian House, the Lantern and the Bus Shelter Dorset. We are also grateful to our many private landlords who have been instrumental in supporting us to prevent homelessness and would encourage others to come forward to further support us.

“We have also seen the recent introduction of two new accommodation and support schemes, funded by the single homeless accommodation programme (SHAP), which has provided 11 new units of accommodation for rough sleepers.

“But we know we must do more, and we are also working on new ways to supply homes  for people who need general and specialist housing. We are making the best use of our own assets, working with registered providers and exploring new leasing schemes over the next three years,” she added.