Homeless accommodation created in Shildon

Station House

We have been awarded £300,000 to create accommodation in County Durham through the government's Rough Sleeper Accommodation Fund.

Everyone In

During 'Everyone In', a scheme which supported rough sleepers to find accommodation during the coronavirus pandemic, we identified rough sleepers in and around the Shildon area.

We found that rough sleepers were reluctant to move outside of the area as they wanted to stay close to friends and family.

As such, we have used our allocation from the Rough Sleeper Accommodation Fund to redevelop Shildon's People Centre into four self-contained flats.

Accomodation and support

These flats, now named Station House, will be owned and managed by us and will serve as accommodation for people who are homeless or are facing homelessness in the Shildon area.

Cllr Alan Shield, our Cabinet member for equality and inclusion, said: "As a local authority, we are extremely committed to preventing people from ending up on the street. We are working hard to sustain the reduction in the number of rough sleepers across the county, with reports of homelessness and rough sleeping being relatively low in comparison to previous times.

"During the coronavirus pandemic we identified people in Shildon facing homelessness who would have benefitted from an increase in dedicated accommodation so they could remain close to friends and family. These new flats will help provide housing for people in this area while also enabling us to provide close support, and are a facility we are considering introducing in other areas of the county as part of our homelessness strategy."