Mayor's homelessness reduction scheme to be expanded

The Mayor's A Bed Every Night homelessness reduction scheme is being extended after a charity warned numbers seeking help have rocketed during the pandemic.

With ‘at least’ 40 new rooms added to the scheme in time for the winter, £663,000 has also been pledged to support young people at risk of homelessness and to tackle the causes that could see people ‘slip through the net’.

Greater Manchester Mayor, Andy Burnham, announced the expansion of his flagship scheme using cash from his mayoral priorities funding pot this afternoon and called on the public to give generously to support those in need.

Alongside Mayor of Salford Paul Dennett, Jo Walby, CEO of homelessness prevention charity the Mustard Tree, and Reverend Ian Rutherford, from the Homelessness Action Network, the mayor renewed his commitment to ending rough sleeping across Greater Manchester after he said the pandemic proved a set back.

Jo Walby said her charity was used to seeing around 500 people a month come forward looking for help before the pandemic. But in the time since then, numbers have soared to around 1,000 seeking help per week.

With 480 people set to be sleeping in accommodation as part of his flagship scheme tonight, Andy Burnham said: “Greater Manchester is in a precarious position, we’re doing a lot and there’s a lot of support out there, but it’s bearing a lot of weight and there are real concerns on how sustainable that support is.

“The latest count showed we’ve got 115 people sleeping rough across Greater Manchester right now. That’s 115 too many, particularly in the middle of a pandemic. It’s a really challenging situation.

“So the Combined Authority today has signed off an additional £600,000 for A Bed Every Night from our own funding, this is not government funding.

“And this is a big commitment to expand our provision over winter, we’re commissioning at least 40 additional places, expanding the scheme and these will be in place ahead of winter.”

Citing the previous Everyone In scheme, the recently established Greater Manchester ethical lettings agency and the city-region’s Homelessness Action Network, he added: “Without these schemes we’d be in a very, very different position given the pressure that is coming at our system right now. It will make a difference, but longer term solutions are needed.

“It’s not going to be easy, this winter promises to be one of the most difficult we’ve experienced, possibly in our lifetimes. But this is an unstoppable movement, the commitment to ending homelessness is unshakable and we will have things back up and running after the interruptions of this year.”

There has been a 20pc rise in people coming forward for support this year since the pandemic began.

There are also currently 3,600 individuals, mainly families, currently in temporary accommodation across Greater Manchester and 4,500 currently living in emergency accommodation provision.

Mayor Burnham said the pandemic has led to a health and safety focus on providing rough sleepers in the region with their own rooms during the outbreak, which has changed the quality of the accommodation provision.

He encouraged the Greater Manchester community to donate to through his mayoral charity to support his mission, and said rather than give on the street, give through the charity ‘to put in place proper support’ for those who need it.

Paul Dennett, Mayor of Salford, lamented the announcement from central government yesterday that the Universal Credit uplift will not be carried into the new financial year next year.

He said: “It will push more families into poverty, more families into destitution. This issue manifested itself before COVID, the situation in Greater Manchester and up and down the country is very much precarious.

“But there’s been a call to arms with the Greater Manchester community coming together to tackle what is a humanitarian crisis. In my view, a roof over your head is a human right and witnessing the call to arms over the last three years has been great to see.”