During periods of severe cold weather, additional emergency accommodation is provided by councils.
Severe weather emergency provision (SWEP) must be provided when the weather is forecast to be sub zero for 3 consecutive days. At this point the usual guidelines over who the council has a duty to provide emergency accommodations for are lifted, and extra provision is made for rough sleepers, regardless of their status.
The council work in partnership with a number of organisations and housing providers to make this additional accommodation available, covering the accommodation and staff costs.
During the day, referrals into this accommodation can be made via:
When daytime services are closed you can refer through:
To establish whether or not SWEP is available in Tameside, ring Tameside Housing Advice on 0161 331 2700. They will make the accommodation placement on a night by night basis and ask the person to return the next day. If the weather is forecast to below zero degrees Celsius the next night the accommodation will be rebooked.
For all other Greater Manchester regions, contact your local council or housing options team for advice.
There are outreach workers covering different areas in the city to connect with people who are rough sleeping and helping them to get inside if they want to. Each individual is assessed so that appropriate accommodation can be found based on their needs.
There could be cases where accommodation providers may feel that they are not able to accommodate someone for example through violent behaviour, but the underlying principles of SWEP mean that every effort is made to find somewhere suitable.
Read more about SWEPIf you are in another location, there may still be services listed near you, just select "Another location" (requires location permissions enabled on your device).
If you are in another location and would like to help us bring Street Support to your area, please get in touch.