Putting a roof over the homeless as winter bites
PARTNERSHIP ON A MISSION TO GET PEOPLE IN FROM COLD – FOR GOOD
AHEAD of the bitterly cold winter months, homeless people in Manchester are being given a chance to get off the streets for good.
Manchester council and the Manchester Homelessness Partnership are preparing to put a roof over the heads of the homeless again throughout winter, as temperatures are predicted to plummet below zero.
And this year, their mission is to offer people without a home a stable environment until March, with long-term hopes to get them off the streets and rebuilding their lives.
This year, the council’s extended accommodation offer will run throughout the winter months until the end of March in a bid to keep tackling homelessness across the city.
It will include space for 50 individuals with en-suite rooms in an ex-hotel, outside the city centre.
Bed spaces will target people who have been identified by partners and outreach teams as having high priority need.
An additional 50 bed spaces in a hotel outside of the city centre will also be offered during prolonged periods of sub zero temperatures.
The council has also been given access to 186 beds as part of the ‘A Bed Every Night’ scheme and 30 new spaces in a hotel in Fallowfield.
Additional support, including a cold weather support co-ordinator, winter provision co-ordinator and a mental health worker has also been made possible through £85,342 of funding from Homeless Link’s Winter Transformation fund.
The council will also still receive funding from central government through the Rough Sleeper Initiative scheme and the Winter Pressures Fund.
Councillor Luthfur Rahman OBE, deputy leader of Manchester council, said the council has ‘taken on board’ lessons following their support of homeless people throughout the pandemic.
He urged the need for emergency support in the city ahead of bitterly cold temperatures.
He said: “Our preparations this year have taken onboard lessons from during the pandemic how we and our partners helped support people who had been sleeping rough into accommodation. “We understand that as the weather gets colder more people are likely to accept help and want to come inside out of the cold. “That is why there is additional emergency provision, and why we must focus our resources on the people who most need our help.
“They are often the most difficult people to reach and our experience shows that if we, along with the help of the partnership, can help them to balance their lives by keeping them in accommodation for that little bit longer.
“We are more likely to get them to engage with the services that they need to help them to gain the confidence and the ability to move forward to a better and hopefully more stable way of life.”
The Manchester Homelessness Partnership (MHP) is a network of organisations working alongside the council to eradicate homelessness in Manchester.
The Booth Centre, one of the organisations involved, will run the daytime Referral Hub to give easy access to the accommodation.
Amanda Croome MBE, CEO of the Booth Centre said: “As a city, we work together to try and ensure that no one needs to sleep rough.
“We work as a partnership to ensure we have an overarching city approach so that services complement each other without duplication so people don’t fall through the net.
“We have had the help of people who are homeless in designing the new service and they will also be involved in delivering and reviewing it, to ensure that we have the right service to get the best outcomes for people.”
We understand as the weather gets colder more people are likely to accept help Coun Luthfur Rahman
● Anyone who is worried about someone sleeping rough can report them to the council online www. streetlink.org.uk.