Phone box sending hope and help for rough sleepers in the city

EYECATCHING NEW INFORMATION POINT OPENS

- By JOE LOCKER Local democracy reporter

A PHONE box converted into a help and information point is one of the ways Nottingham is hoping to tackle “rising” rough sleeping and homelessness.

Government data shows that, compared to the size of the local population, Nottingham has the highest number of people sleeping rough out of all core cities.

The 12 core cities are Nottingham, Birmingham, Bristol, Cardiff, Edinburgh, Glasgow, Leeds, Liverpool, Manchester, Newcastle, Belfast and Sheffield.

According to Nottingham City Council, the number of longer-term rough sleepers in the city “is high and rising”, with many individuals not engaging with services and declining accommodation.

Over recent years, the number of rough sleepers found on a single night count in Nottingham each month has varied from 40 to 60 people.

But November was the worst month of the year, with 149 individuals recorded as rough sleeping at some point.

On top of rough sleeping, the most visible form of homelessness, around 130 households approach the council for homelessness help every week.

The number of single-person households needing emergency accommodation has also “increased drastically in the last year”, from 339 cases in 2024 to 446 last year.

The council had a budget of £4.4 million for temporary accommodation in 2025 alone.

At a meeting yesterday, Debbie Richards, assistant director of Housing Solutions, said: “Our cases were, on average, 180 per officer.

“[The Government] said case loads should be in the region of 35 to 40. So the average was four and a half times what they needed to be. We have 6.2 per 1,000 households are assessed as homeless; that is really high.”