Closed Sheffield care home set to become temporary accommodation for homeless
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Members of Sheffield City Council’s finance sub-committee will tomorrow (Wednesday, January 4) be asked to approve plans for the former Knowle Hill residential care home on Streetfields, Halfway.
The home has been vacant since the service was relocated in 2017, says a report to the committee. It adds: “The site has been identified as suitable for the delivery of new temporary accommodation as part of the council’s Stock Increase Programme (SIP).“The site needs to be formally appropriated for ‘housing purposes’ to enable work to progress on the delivery of new temporary accommodation.”
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Hide AdThe Stock Increase Programme aims to increase the amount of council housing available in the city.
The committee will be told that demand for temporary accommodation has increased significantly since 2018. On June 30 last year, there were 260 households in local authority or housing association places plus 123 households in bed and breakfast hotels.
Knock-on impact
The total cost of emergency hotel and B&B places in 2021-22 was £3.65m, which is partly covered by housing benefit and grant funding.
The report says the requirement to accommodate people with emergency needs has a knock-on impact on the number of homes available to other people who are on the housing register.Using the Knowle Hill site for a purpose-built facility would enable delivery of 25 temporary accommodation units plus office space. The council owns the site, which it formerly leased out to residential home charity Sheffcare.
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Hide AdThe report adds that the vacant building has become a focus for anti-social behaviour, so demolishing it and clearing the site will improve the situation for people living nearby.
People living in the area will be consulted as the plans take shape. Ward councillors and MP Clive Betts have already been informed.
The cost of the work will be met from a £6.7 million budget and the site is currently worth £220,000. The report says that the building cannot be adapted to provide enough self-contained accommodation, leading to the proposal to demolish and rebuild on the site.