Coastline Housing has officially opened its new homeless centre at Dudnance Lane in Pool.

A new, purpose-built facility for Coastline’s Homeless Service is here thanks to match funding secured from Homes England and Cornwall Council.

Louise Beard, director of housing, assets and communities at Coastline Housing said: “This centre will enable us to expand our services to those without a home of their own, keep them safe, and work with them to help them re-build their lives. We are incredibly proud to open this fantastic new facility.”

It is the culmination of ten years work identifying a new location to provide modern facilities and cost a total of £3million to develop.

The centre brings together several services on one site - overnight crisis accommodation, a community hub with space for partner organisations, IT suite, a doctors’ surgery, training space and office facilities for staff.

There are 18 self-contained rooms for people in need of crisis accommodation, offering a place to stay for those who are homeless. There will also be Severe Weather Emergency Protocol (SWEP) provision - flexible provision of five chair/bed spaces, and 24/7 staff/concierge support.

Two adjacent buildings provide shared living move-on accommodation for eight clients.

This gives them the opportunity to move from crisis accommodation to more independent living while still receiving help from staff and making use of the day centre and its services.

The Coastline Homeless Service can now provide a more comprehensive range of services to many more clients, with joined-up support helping them move from the street to permanent housing.

The new centre replaces a day centre facility on Bassett Road in the centre of Camborne which has long proved to be an unsuitable building due to the layout of rooms, plus crisis accommodation in a nearby home within which all rooms were shared.

In the past year, Coastline’s Homeless Service has helped over 400 people by providing:

• Information, advice and guidance – from trained support workers, with an emphasis on finding and maintaining accommodation

• Accommodation and facilities – crisis (for homeless) and supported (for those moving-on from crisis accommodation)

• Support – commissioned from Cornwall Council, support includes identifying accommodation, making planned moves, and forming links to healthcare, substance misuse, alcohol dependency, mental health, offender and other services as appropriate

• Resettlement - identifying an individual’s accommodations needs, barriers and aspirations and working alongside them to find their next most suitable accommodation

• Volunteer and Partner Programmes – encouraging clients and others to donate their time and skills while creating learning opportunities

• Health for Homeless - offers access to a GP or a prescribing nurse for individuals who are or have been homeless

• Partner organisations - enabling people using our service to access training and education, to be delivered by specialists but from our premises

Work on the new building started in April 2018, and was carried out by Classic Builders Ltd. It stands on disused land near the former South Crofty mine, changing a brownfield site into a new facility to benefit the community.