Council leaders have approved plans to spend £1.8 million helping rough sleepers in Stoke-on-Trent this year – as the number of street homeless in the city continues to rise.

Stoke-on-Trent City Council and its partners will continue to provide a raft of services in 2025/26, including night shelters, temporary and move-on accommodation, healthcare and peer mentors.

The schemes will be paid for through a number of government funding pots, mainly the Rough Sleeper Prevention and Recover Grant, which has replaced several smaller grants.

The existing services have been developed since 2022, when the government announced that it would be ending rough sleeping for good.

But the report says that despite 'significant investment' by the government over the last three years, the number of rough sleepers has increased, both locally and nationally.

As of the end of April, the rough sleeper outreach service had 65 individuals on its caseload. Twenty of these, or 31 per cent, were female, which is double the proportion nationally.

The council is currently reviewing its homelessness and rough sleeping strategy, which will inform the design of future services from 2026/27 onwards.

Cabinet members at the city council voted to grant senior officers authority to accept the government funding and extend the existing rough sleeping services until March 2026.

Cllr Chris Robinson, cabinet member for housing, planning and governance, said: "The council receives funding from the government for a wide range of services to prevent homelessness, tackle rough sleeping and support victims of domestic abuse. In 2025/26 this will total over £4 million.

"Most of the funding was not confirmed until very late in 2024, or early this year. This makes it extremely difficult to review and procure new services without impacting on existing services.

"It is therefore recommended that the existing services be recommissioned this year, while a fundamental review of our approach takes place following the adoption of a new homeless and rough sleeping strategy."

Cllr Robinson was part of a party of elected members and officers from Stoke-on-Trent who recently visited Manchester to see how authorities there are dealing with rough sleeping.

He added: "It was a good day, we picked up a lot of stuff. Some of it might work in Manchester but not work here, but we made some good contacts and an understanding of the way they work.

"I think it's about the bigger picture – we've got to change the way that we look at rough sleeping, homelessness, drug addiction and alcohol addiction. Hopefully the new policy will include that."

Cabinet members said that rough sleeping – the most visible form of homelessness – has become increasingly common across the city.

Cllr Sarah Jane Colclough said: "I support extension of the services and look forward to the review. We see the homelessness problem every day, and it's becoming challenging for those services in the area."

Cllr Sarah Hill, cabinet member for finance, said that the late confirmation of funding from the government made it difficult for the council to 'think strategically' about an issue that needed long-term planning.

She added: "I think all of us as councillors have experienced issues around homelessness in a way that wouldn't have happened in years gone by.

"It's moved out of the centre into all of our wards. I think we need to think much more strategically about what works and how to help people."

The existing services include the homeless hub, which supports more than 900 people every month, the rough sleepers outreach team, and a mental health practitioner.

Services aimed at female rough sleepers include a women-only night shelter, provided by Brighter Futures, which has supported 35 women since it launched in December.

Anyone concerned about a person sleeping rough, or at risk of sleeping rough, can contact the rough sleepers team on 0800 970 2304 or via the city council website.