Coronavirus: Volunteers needed to help Portsmouth’s homeless as numbers start to drop
EXTRA volunteers could be needed to assist the homeless in Portsmouth as the number of helpers has started to decline amid the coronavirus outbreak.
As part of Portsmouth City Council's covid-19 plan for the city it warned how services providing food for rough sleepers has been hit by a loss of volunteers and pledged to step in and assist with meals.
Council leader Councillor Gerald Vernon-Jackson announced all non-critical services provided by the council would continue to run, with helping the homeless classed as a necessity among social care and other housing issues.
He said: 'We have two voluntary organisations feeding the homeless two nights a week and that can't carry on if lots of them are self isolating or taken sick.
'We must make sure people are fed whether it's directly by us or by other volunteers.'
The council's housing boss, Cllr Darren Sanders, explained that the situation was likely to keep evolving. He said: 'The advice is constantly changing but we must make sure rough sleepers are treated properly.
'We currently need as many people as possible to help the homeless. However, we are awaiting further guidance from the government on this.'
Homelessness charity the Society of St James (SSJ) provides some of the essential services for rough sleepers in Portsmouth, running hostels and distributing food.
Trevor Pickup, the chief executive of the SSJ, said his team had already started looking for extra staff and volunteers due to the expectation that existing staff could self-isolate.
He said: 'Just this morning we were looking at how we continue to staff the various services if we have a high level of sickness.
'We are going to be looking at how we can move our non essential staff to hostels where they can help deliver services. We going to try to recruit extra staff so that we have got people in reserve.
'We are also going to try to build up our list of volunteers, people have started approaching us about this already. If we can get people with previous experience in this or those who have volunteered with other projects in the past that would be ideal.'
Data from Public Health England in 2019 showed that in Portsmouth there are 5.6 homeless people per 1,000 of the population, more than double the 2.5 per 1,000 in England.