All you need to know about SWEP

With winter here, we want to remind people about how we offer emergency beds to people experiencing rough sleeping in Birmingham.

Trident Reach activates SWEP (severe weather emergency protocol) or CWP (cold weather provision) on behalf of Birmingham City Council. It is activated whenever there is a yellow weather warning in place from the MET office or whenever temperatures have a real feel of zero degrees or below. 

If you are rough sleeping when SWEP is activated, or at any other time of the year, you should either present at SIFA Fireside (Liverpool Street, Deritend, Birmingham, B9 4DY), or make a StreetLink self-referral. Once you make a self-referral, Trident Reach’s Rough Sleeper Outreach Team will try to find and contact you to provide you with a bed.

If you are a member of the public and you see or know someone who you think is sleeping rough, you should make a referral via StreetLink. The referral will be sent to Trident Reach’s Rough Sleeper Outreach Team, who will try and find the rough sleeper and provide them with shelter. The team will make more than one attempt to reach them, and you will be kept updated via StreetLink.

If there is someone with an immediate risk to life, 999 should be called. StreetLink is not an emergency service.

Between Trident Reach’s emergency accommodation service and other accommodation providers in the city, there are plenty of beds available across Birmingham to accommodate rough sleepers.