6. Will the First Minister make a statement on the estimated number of rough sleepers in Wales? OQ55919

Latest estimates suggest that during the month of August, 974 people presenting as homeless were found immediate accommodation; 476 homeless people were provided with suitable long-term accommodation; and 101 homeless people were rough-sleeping. Monthly data of that sort will be published for the remainder of this Senedd term.

Can I thank the First Minister for his answer? And he would have also heard the exchange in the Chamber last week with the housing Minister, and the number of 100 or 101 rough-sleepers who are now on the streets of the towns and cities of Wales is very distressing. I know that over 3,000 or 3,500, I think, people have been helped during COVID into emergency accommodation of one kind or another, and that is a real achievement, but part of the problem is that, for many years, we've not had a very reliable estimate of the number of rough-sleepers, and this has been a problem across the United Kingdom, but we do need to know the level of the problem, so that we can take appropriate action to meet the scale of it. But can you give us the assurance immediately that the assertive outreach to help those 101 people who are rough-sleeping at the moment is being effective?

Llywydd, I think we can give that assurance. It's two things together, it seems to me. It is assertive outreach and then it's a proper level of support for those people after they have been reached and after they have been placed in accommodation. We know that amongst the 101 people who were sleeping rough in August, there will be some people whose level of addiction to alcohol or to drugs has taken them back onto the streets again. We will know that in some settings, where people who were previously homeless have been temporarily housed, there is a level of anti-social behaviour that has an impact on staff and on other tenants alike and which some people find they're just not able to deal with. So, as well as reaching people through assertive outreach services, we also have to make sure that we have the help that is then necessary to sustain people in temporary accommodation to begin with, and then into permanent accommodation in the way that we wish to see. I know that David Melding will be aware of the fact that in the £50 million next phase of our homelessness response, nearly £10 million of that is for that wraparound support in mental health and substance misuse, to try and make sure that people do not feel that the answer that's right for them is a return to rough-sleeping from which they otherwise would have been relieved.