A HOMELESS centre has succeeded in making a massive cut in the amount of people sleeping rough on York's streets.

Since 1997, official figures have shown a huge drop from 23 to only three.

And it is being attributed largely to the work of the Arclight night shelter, in Leeman Road.

"The major contribution to the reduction of street sleepers is Arclight, which accommodates up to 38 people per night," said Leslie Healey, City of York Council's head of advice and housing assessments.

"And (the centre's) more recent development work is being heavily focused on resettlement into sustainable tenancies and the prevention of other customers becoming rough sleepers when things go wrong in their own tenancies."

The drop has resulted in successful bids for funding by the council, including a recent £30,000 grant for a mental health worker from the Department of Health.

"York has been visited on several occasions by the (Government's) Rough Sleepers Unit and on each occasion has been congratulated on its approach to rough sleeping and the partnership work that is led by City of York Council but to which every agency contributes," said Mrs Healey.

Jeremy Jones, project director at Arclight, said: "Although we are delighted to have contributed to this, we are still not in a good situation because we are practically full every night.

"There is a lot more work that needs to be done."

Updated: 08:39 Friday, April 05, 2002