Green light for scheme to help some of Torbay’s ‘most vulnerable’

A new project in Torbay will offer help and housing to some of the bay’s most vulnerable people.

Twenty homeless people will be offered a fresh start as Torbay Council joins forces with an as-yet unnamed provider to convert a disused residential care home.

It will offer round-the-clock support to people, many of them elderly, currently living alone in bed-and-breakfast accommodation. Members of the council’s cabinet committee heard that people who had no means of cooking their own food could suffer health issues as a result.

They were also told that the new initiative would not be aimed at rough sleepers or people who have issues around substance misuse.

The committee heard that temporary accommodation in Torbay is currently dispersed and unsupported. Around 80 adults have bed and breakfast accommodation with no kitchen facilities or support.

It will cost the council a quarter of a million pounds a year, but will also save around £200,000 a year on bed and breakfast housing if it teams up with an existing national housing provider which has already expressed an interest.

“This will support the increasing number of elderly people who are becoming homeless,” said council leader David Thomas (Con, Preston), while Cllr Hayley Tranter (Con, Goodrington with Roselands) described it as “a great opportunity.”