Jim Parker: 'Rehab village' a bold response to the problem of rough sleepers

"Create a good communal space and during the day this can be used for health visits and rehab programmes, and, in the evening, it can be used for people to get together."

She goes on: "Connect up with South Devon College to provide skills training for those able to undertake it. Provide this training, and the building and other jobs as a part of the capital partnership building programme, and for others hospitality and other sectors may provide opportunity.

Provide bricks and mortar accommodation as it becomes available. Those wages will pay for it and individuals should continue to be monitored and helped."

Katya then told me: "Dispersal alone does not work. I think we should also explore whether rehabilitation communities might be part of the answer, or hubs offering services like storage, phone charging, washing machines... in locations reachable from the town centre and which are sufficiently attractive to act as magnets. We see so many homeless in our town centres because they form the perfect ecosystems. We need to think along those same lines."

She said town centres were 'attractive' for people with these socially-related issues. "There are people offering booze and money. All these things are very attractive to a homeless individual or people who have a lot of time on their hands," said Katya.

She talks of a 'unit a certain distance from the attractive part of the town.

She says: "We should consider what is needed for the town and for these individuals. We have a duty of care. If I had been running the regeneration programme perhaps I would be considering this idea more closely and asking our sponsors and partners to support some sort of arrangement which would take people out of the context of drink, drugs and crime."

As for the Factory Row hostel, she says: "I am sure Factory Row does have a place. We just need to be a bit more judicious and thoughtful about how we use it. I think it works very well.