If you’ve recently become homeless, or there is a risk of that happening, it’s important to get the right advice. The first thing you will need to do is to get in touch with your local council as soon as possible.
You’ll find the council information here.
For independent advice, you can contact Shelter or Citizen’s Advice.
If you are Rough Sleeping or Concerned About a Rough Sleeper
Contact the Bournemouth and Poole Rough Sleeper Team:
- email b&pstreetoutreach@mungos.org
- phone 01202 315962 (24 hour answer-phone)
The team deliver an outreach service so are not always in the office, but your message will be listened to and followed up at the earliest opportunity.
Please give us as much detail as you can about where you or the person concerned are sleeping.
The Rough Sleeper Team is commissioned by Bournemouth and Poole Councils to provide outreach and support to people that are rough sleeping in the towns. The team works to help people address their issues and make positive moves off the street and into accommodation.
Alternatively you can report your concerns via Streetlink or call 0300 500 0914. Streetlink is an England-wide phone-line, website and mobile app which enables the public to alert local authorities about people sleeping rough in their area. The information you provide will be swiftly passed on to the local rough sleeper outreach team.
In an emergency please call 999 – when someone is at risk of being injured, a crime or is in progress, or if you have urgent concerns about someone’s health.
If you need someone to listen
The Samaritans offer a free 24-hour listening service on 116 123.
They offer a safe place for you to talk any time you like, in your own way – about whatever’s getting to you.
They won’t judge your or tell you what to do, they will listen.
The Bournemouth branch is also available for face-to-face sessions from 9am to 9pm at:
The Samaritans
1 Durrant Road
Bournemouth
BH2 6LE
You can visit their website here
How YMCA Bournemouth Can Help
Our main focus is on providing people with individually based support solutions that aim to keep them safe from homelessness over the long-term.
For anyone seeking accommodation we recommend they first contact BCP Council.
For further information or a referral form for rooms at YMCA Bournemouth, please contact us here.
We also co-run Half-Time in Westover Road, a service where rough sleepers sit down with experienced advisors by appointment and work out their plan of action.
If you have a health problem, we are close partners of the HealthBus which provides rough sleepers with free drop-in consultations every Thursday outside YMCA Bournemouth from 9.30am to 12.30pm.
If you would like to help
Whether it’s offering your time, giving practical items. fundraising and raising awareness or making a donation where you know it will do some good, there’s plenty you can do to help.
On the parable of the Good Samaritan:
”I imagine that the first question the priest and Levite asked was: 'If I stop to help this man, what will happen to me?' But by the very nature of his concern, the good Samaritan reversed the question: 'If I do not stop to help this man, what will happen to him?'”
Martin Luther King, Strength to Love
to delete: Housing enquiries – Martyn Smith, Looking for Accommodation – Sarah