The Melbourne council has announced an “assertive” new approach to dealing with homelessness.

Victoria Police will be brought in to remove groups of homeless people under a new arrangement unveiled by Melbourne Lord Mayor Robert Doyle this week.

“The formal signing marks a very important step in dealing with people who are homeless but are also in the public realm causing a problem through obstruction or removing people's right to enjoy public open space,” Mr Doyle said.

The new protocols ban rough sleepers from block the entry or exit of a building, and from gathering in groups of four or more people.

They also allow council officers to remove items from people sleeping on the streets.

“It clearly sets out a number of scenarios … [if] there are people who are sleeping there and there are two or three of them and they pack up their belongings and they move on the city has no issue, being homeless is not a crime,” Cr Doyle said.

“But if there is a gathering of more than four then … they will be able to keep personal goods, but [compliance officers] will remove the other goods and ask them to disperse.

“We needed to be more assertive and that's why we've got these teams now out talking to people and meeting with people.

“We are absolutely confident this can work.”

Victoria Police Chief Commissioner Graham Ashton said police would also deal with beggars.

“We know we saw last summer people coming into the city, often from interstate, trying to cash in on the tourism boom … coming to basically hassle people for money,” he said.

“We're dealing with that now much more aggressively, so we've been making arrests, taking people before the courts.”

Chief Commissioner Ashton said police would help funnel some of those people arrested into Salvation Army programs, if they were begging due to genuine poverty.

“But where they're not, we're dealing with them down the criminal justice path if they're coming in to hassle people for money … we're going to be absolutely cracking down on that,” he said

The Council to Homeless Persons says it supports the strategy.

“The positive outcomes being achieved through the combined efforts of council and State Government working closely with both police and services, has clearly demonstrated that provision of housing and the right support reduces rough sleeping,” chief executive Jenny Smith said.

“This approach adopts the lessons learnt from overseas, which show that punitive laws do not have a positive practical impact on homelessness, rather directly causing harm to people who are homeless.”