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RSVP Rough Sleepers and Vulnerable People

The Rough Sleepers and Vulnerable People (RSVP) service aims to reduce the numbers of people rough sleeping by finding and engaging with the most difficult to reach and most excluded people experiencing homelessness.

The Street Team

The Rough Sleepers and Vulnerable People (RSVP) service aims to reduce the numbers of people rough sleeping by finding and engaging with the most difficult to reach and most excluded people experiencing homelessness.

The team’s primary function is to actively look for people who appear to be homeless and ask them if they are looking for support and, if they are, connect them to any appropriate service. The service receives information from the public and professionals regarding people who may be sleeping rough or begging in the city. The service actively seeks out and engages with people.

Staff regularly undertake a mapping exercise where they seek out previous, potential and notified ‘skipper’ sites to see if people are actively using these with a view to engaging them.

The team has presence on the streets from 8am until 11pm. Outside of these hours a telephone service is available, with a Freephone number, so that people can call for advice, support and signposting to relevant services.

What we do

• Actively seek and provide support to anyone in rough sleeping or begging sites, drop-in centres, soup kitchens and other places across the city including the Winter Night Shelter.
• Advocate for people who are being engaged by Casework Teams helping them to try and access accommodation.
• Direct people to emergency accommodation and pays for this where necessary.
• Help people to get home where this is outside Glasgow.
• Connect people to legal services, addiction teams, the Hub, the Complex Needs service, healthcare and other resources.
• Provide advice on homeless support and other allied services
• Help people to access food and clothing.
• Try to keep in contact until help and solutions are found that reduce individual’s exposure to risk and harm.
• Provide sleeping bags as a measure of last resort.
• Maintain a map of rough sleeping sites across the city.

The Rough Sleepers and Vulnerable peoples service (RSVP), is made up of 4 distinct but interconnected service elements; The Street Team, the Complex Needs team, the Hub and the Freephone Helpline.

During the first six months of this year the Street Team monitored 48 known skipper sites and identified 36 new sites.

There were over 1000 incidents of rough sleeping during the period involving just over 350 unique individuals; 300 nights as a result of no accommodation, over 450 where the service user for a range of reasons could not take up accommodation, over 60 had no local connection and 3 service users were excluded from services because they had pets.

The service issued over 300 sleeping bags during the six month period.

The service placed 50 people into emergency B&B placements of which 29 were supported into more permanent accommodation within 72 hours.

The Street Team launched the home safe ‘For some home is a journey’ project supporting people off the street and home safe.

The Freephone service received around 60 calls per week amounting to over 1400 over 6 months.

Concerned about someone homeless or sleeping rough in Glasgow?
Call this Freephone number 0800 027 7466

Simon Community Scotland has a dedicated Street Team working across Glasgow City to support rough sleeping or people at risk of homelessness.