Mayor’s call to give every rough sleeper bed for the winter
GREATER Manchester mayor Andy Burnham has called on the region’s boroughs to provide a bed for every rough-sleeper during autumn and winter this year.
Manchester council has already pledged to do so and now Mr Burnham is hoping the region’s other town halls will follow suit.
Writing in a blog post ahead of the region’s latest homelessness summit, he suggests that providing that sort of support between October and March this year would have a real impact.
It would require councils and other organisations to work together in order to identify suitable buildings, he says, but argues that challenge needs to be taken up.
“The big question that I will put today is this: can Greater Manchester aim to provide a bed for every rough- sleeper every night of the week over this coming winter?” he writes. “This is a major commitment and will be a real challenge to deliver. But it is the right question to be asking at this stage of our journey towards ending the need for rough-sleeping.”
Admitting that this could come at ‘significant extra cost’, he points out Manchester council – which has by far the biggest homeless problem in Greater Manchester – had already signed up to do so.
The mayor now wants to direct his mayoral homelessness fund, which has been raising money from the public since he took office, specifically into the new winter rough-sleeper provision. He is also asking the region’s business action network to focus on the same priority.
“If we can make it work, A Bed Every Night would be a partnership with our 10 councils,” he says. “Earlier this week, I met councillors with local responsibility for tackling homelessness and we plan to start early work with them on drawing up local plans.
“New buildings will need to be identified in each area. We are grateful to Reverend Ian Rutherford, who leads Greater Manchester’s Homelessness Faith Network, for assisting us in this task. Many churches, mosques and other faith buildings were used last winter and we are hoping that even more will be found for this. One of the great benefits of a six-month scheme of this kind is that it would enable us to gain a clear picture of the costs, challenges and benefits of providing stable daily provision for all rough-sleepers.”
Referencing his electoral promise to end rough-sleeping in the region by 2020, he adds: “If it works, and could be made financially sustainable, I would intend to repeat the scheme in October 2019 but at that point consider making A Bed Every Night permanent, thereby delivering my manifesto commitment.”
Mr Burnham admits politicians need to have their ‘eyes open to the risks’, although he says sees no evidence that such support would make Greater Manchester a ‘magnet’ for the homeless.
Nevertheless in order to make the programme affordable, it may need to be limited to people whose last permanent address was in the region and who have no recourse to public funds, he says. “In the end, the best way to approach this is for Greater Manchester to do what feels right for us and encourage other cities and towns to provide the same,” he says, adding that he wants to hear the public’s views.
Currently, councils do not legally have to provide a bed for every roughsleeper until three consecutive days of freezing temperatures, although Manchester has for some time done so as soon as the mercury drops below zero.
The proposed programme would extend far beyond that, however, and it is understood it has not yet been fully costed. Town halls have not formally signed up to the idea either, although the mayor’s office will hope that with Manchester having already done so, the bulk of the cost is already accounted for – while charitable donations would also contribute towards the move.
Mr Burnham says the plan would not be instead of other initiatives, such as a ‘housing first’ model that helps people into a home before dealing with issues such as drug addiction.