James Tucker-Last leads a team tackling frontline homelessness
Jamie Tucker-Last leads a team of outreach and tenancy support workers at Torbay Council working tirelessly to get rough sleepers off the streets of the Bay and into stable accommodation.
The Leonard Stocks Centre is a crucial part of that work offering 29 places but numbers outdoors on any one night can be double that.
There has been a 54% increase in the number of people sleeping rough in Torbay in just 12 months as anyone who spends time in our town centres cannot help but notice.
Twice a week outreach workers are out from as early as 6am acting on information from the public and agencies as to where people are sleeping rough. That can be in remote woods or in highly visible shop fronts. All are offered the opportunity for a swift housing assessment and other help which can get them out of danger and exploitation. The longer people are rough sleeping, the snares of drug and alcohol use increase and mental health declines.
Jamie, who has spent time working in Bristol for the Probation Service, says Torbay faces a unique problem – the lack of even the most basic accommodation.
“Landlords talk to each and clients get stigmatised. Even the most flexible of providers will turn people away. The hostel is incredibly important as it fills part of the gap and can stablise lives. Without it we couldn’t do our job. Its rooms are crucial and people can access services for tissue viability, psychiatric support and even a GP.
“Staff at Leonard Stocks are amazing. They have deep compassion and empathy, always trying to do the right thing despite people’s history. They have an unwavering capacity for supporting vulnerable people but in a risk- managed way.
“Compared to other services I’ve seen it stands tall.”
Jamie and his team work with some very challenging cases which require a bespoke solution.
He said: “I’m thinking of a man in his mid-30s who still rough sleeping even though we have offered him a space in the hostel numerous times.
“He struggles with his mental health and prefers the isolation of sleeping away from others. In the early summer he camped in around an area of the ring road.
“Staff from the hostel and the outreach team tried to build trust and get him into the hostel but he found this difficult.
“Then, we believe, someone set fire to his encampment and destroyed it. Since then he has continued to rough sleep in a more built up area with many businesses. We continue to invite him into the hostel and have not given up.
“However much we want to support people, we can only offer, we can’t coerce. In this case we are working out how we can support him differently.”