Bath’s homeless hostel ‘at risk’ as council plans cuts
Bath’s homeless hostel on Manvers Street is “at risk” as the local council plans cuts, the charity which runs it has warned.
Julian House’s hostel has provided emergency short term accommodation for rough sleepers in the city for 35 years. But its lease for its location in the basement of Manvers Street Baptist Church is set to end in two years and Bath and North East Somerset Council is planning to cut £802k from the funding it gives charities such as Julian House in coming years.
The chief executive of Julian House, Helen Bedser, warned: “Our Manvers Street Hostel for rough sleepers is at risk from the council’s planned cuts. With our lease ending in August 2026, we are working with the council to find a replacement site, but funding is yet to be confirmed.
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“Over the years, the hostel has supported thousands of vulnerable people. Last year alone, the service gave 116 people a safe place to live, recover from the trauma of rough sleeping and take their next steps towards independence and security.
“Our supported housing across B&NES offers our clients a crucial stepping stone on the route to their own home, with an expert and passionate staff team to provide them with trauma-informed support. But this is also at risk from planned cuts, with no clear strategy for what will replace this provision if it goes.
“We know that the council’s budgets are tight and will likely continue to be so. But B&NES needs a long-term strategy and appropriate funding to tackle homelessness.”
Bath and North East Somerset Council had planned to cut £802k from funding it gives to charities when it set its budget for this year in February, but the cut was spread over the 2024/25 and 2025/26 financial years after local charities and people experiencing homelessness in Bath warned the cuts would be catastrophic. Julian House was told in March it would not face cuts in the current year.
But charities warned last month they were not being involved in discussions about the cuts. Now Julian House is concerned where next year's cuts could fall and whether Chancellor Rachel Reeves will keep ring fenced funding to help local authorities tackle rough sleeping and homelessness in the government’s upcoming autumn statement. Ms Bedser said: “If she does not renew current grants in her budget, it will equate to £1bn leaving the homelessness sector next year.”
She said: “This at a time when homelessness is on the rise in B&NES, with official figures showing rough sleeping increasing by 25% in 2023. Julian House delivers daily rough sleeper outreach with DHI, another vital local charity — and so far in 2024 the team has connected with 30-45 rough sleepers each month.
“These are some of the most vulnerable people in our community, let down by systems that should protect them and isolated from the support and services that most of us take for granted.”
Bath and North East Somerset Council’s cabinet member for built environment, housing and sustainable development, Matt McCabe, said: “We value our third sector providers — including Julian House — however we are faced with the need to make some difficult savings while getting the best possible outcomes with the funding we have available. As a result we have had to undertake a very complex piece of commissioning work, very quickly, to be clear about the many existing contracts with many providers which include Julian House.
“We know this has caused concern and uncertainty for providers but we will be working with them to get the benefit of their expertise and the thoughts of their members in this next phase of our community services review which needs to make best use of the council’s limited resources.”
Last year, Michael Dixon — who slept rough for eight years on and off before a Julian House outreach team met him and brought him to the Manvers Street Hostel — told the Local Democracy Reporting Service: “This is a vital ground service that leads to a lot of other services. If services like this were cut, it could lead to people not getting services higher up.”
He added: “They shouldn’t be making cuts. They should be building more of these places.”