A Newhaven councillor has accused Brighton and Hove City Council of abandoning vulnerable homeless residents in a block of flats in his ward where they are receiving little or no support.
Kendal Court in Newhaven become notorious in 2018 after seven people living there died in two years.
Councillor James MacCleary says although the council may not mean to abandon people with acute mental health problems there, but that has been the effect.
He and his colleagues on Lewes District Council have been raising the issue with Brighton and Hove City Council over the last year.
But an incident in which residents stood on the roof abusing people in the pub garden next door has prompted him to write directly to the chair of the housing committee.
He said: “There are two main concerns from my perspective. Firstly, the wellbeing of residents in the building itself. Brighton and Hove City Council may not treat them as supported, but they are clearly in need of support.
“My longstanding ward colleague, Cllr Graham Amy, can recount accounts of residents needing direct support with basic needs like food and clothing.
“I do not think that councillors at Brighton and Hove City Council have been trying to abandon people with acute mental health issues in Newhaven, but that has been the effect.
“More than one resident has died at the building in the last year. Secondly, there have been numerous anti-social behaviour incidents with local residents becoming increasingly concerned about their own safety and that of their families.
“Earlier this month, images were shared of individuals on the roof of the building throwing abuse at people in the neighbouring pub garden.
“That is affecting the quality of life of residents and leading to hostility towards people in the building.
“The owner of the building now wishes to expand it. It is already an entirely unsuitable building being a converted office building. It’s clearly not suitable for expansion.”
Nikki Daniels, who with her sisters Kerri and Natalie runs The Engineer pub next door, said they regularly had trouble from residents who threw items into their pub garden, abused customers and exposed themselves from their curtainless windows.
She said: “when Brighton started putting homeless people there, to start with the residents were nice and they just wanted to get their lives back on track.
“But it gradually got worse as when they’re bunched together, they’re not the nicest bunch of people.
“One of the residents threatened my sister with a heavy glass ashtray when she was pregnant.
“We’ve had threats, people climbing out of the windows onto the roof. Our fence has been ruined by people using it to hang their TV aerials on, and one person even cut into our garden and hung their aerial on the playground swing.
“The security there are brilliant, they’re doing the best they can with what they can do, but they’re not there all the time and the residents know when they’re not there and that’s when they misbehave.
“And they’re just security – a lot of the residents need rehab support. The council just isn’t doing the right thing by them and it’s horrible to see.
“I see so many people coming and going from there. As soon as they tun up you look at their face and they are wondering why are they here.
“there was one lady who came into the pub and she said I don’t know what I’ve done to be sent here. She looked absolutely terrified.
“And there are some people who don’t want the help and are just there to cause trouble.”
A spokeswoman for Kendal Court said: “Kendal Court is emergency accommodation for homeless people. It’s not supported accommodation or rehabilitation detox accommodation and so there is no on-site support.
“There is a building manager and in addition BHCC have a team of Welfare Officers who provide support to homeless people in all our emergency accommodation.
“Generally the welfare officers visit Kendal Court at least once a week and more as required but during Covid this has not been possible due to restrictions and so they have been telephoning people instead to check on their welfare.
“We also refer people for assessment by Adult Social Care if they have support needs and /or apparent mental health issues and depending on the assessment they may be provided with more specialist support.
“Where people have needs such that they need to attend multiple health appointments in Brighton, they will be prioritised for a move back to the city as soon as we have available accommodation.
“This has been challenging during Covid because the housing market had slowed considerably, reducing opportunities for move on, and in addition all councils were required to provide accommodation for all people who were or would be rough sleeping.”
