In his first four years as mayor, he was faced with a rough sleeping 'crisis' – now Andy Burnham says he wants to tackle the root causes of homelessness.
Preparing for the economic impact of the pandemic to hit, the metro mayor has published a homelessness prevention strategy for Greater Manchester.
Evictions from rented properties are still the biggest cause of homelessness in Greater Manchester, Burnham says, and with a ban on evictions set to be lifted at the end of this month, the number of homeless people could soon spike.
Fears of furlough ending, coupled with companies cutting jobs and more businesses folding could also result in more people losing their homes.
The new strategy, which has been published today (May 14) as part of a public consultation, claims to be a collaborative effort, based on lived experience.
At the heart of plan is a new Good Landlord Charter which promises to protect renters and prevent unfair evictions across all 10 boroughs of the city-region.
More private-rented homes will be brought under an ethical lettings agency.
And funding for ‘move-on accommodation’, offering people in temporary housing a place to go, has been secured for 300 new units by mid-2022.
But the top priority is to build 30,000 zero-carbon homes for ‘social rent’.
Local authorities, who have already committed to this, will decide where the new homes will be located with detailed plans to be published within a year.
Speaking after an early morning walk-about in Manchester city centre, the mayor said he saw a ‘very different scene’ from when he was first elected.
He said: “We had a crisis situation and we had to first deal with the crisis.
“There were large numbers of people sleeping rough, we didn’t have places for them to go.
“It’s taken a monumental effort of a lot of people to build A Bed Every Night and the Housing First scheme and some of the other offers of support we’ve got and it made a difference because it’s a different picture this morning.
“But we do recognise that our attention needs to broaden and move more towards prevention and hence the preparation of this strategy.
“It’s the logical next stage in how to get much more serious about prevention.”
Launched in autumn 2018, Burnham’s A Bed Every Night initiative still regularly accommodates around 520 people across Greater Manchester.
And since the coronavirus crisis took hold, the government’s Everyone In scheme has offered all rough sleepers some temporary accommodation.
Salford mayor Paul Dennett said Greater Manchester needs to be ‘bold’ and ‘ambitious’ in conversations with government about funding schemes like this.
Salford mayor Paul Dennett, GMCA Lead on Housing and Homelessness, at a press conference on Friday. Credit: GMCA.
He said: “It teaches us something quite profound. If government nationally have the will to tackle homelessness and rough sleeping, then they can do it.”
Everyone In has come to an end now and the last site in Manchester funded by the scheme, the Holiday Inn Express in Gorton, is closing in two weeks’ time.
Eleanor Watts, an area manager at Riverside Group who manages some of the sites, said everyone at the hotel in east Manchester has an ‘exit plan’ in place.
But Burnham says a lack of small studio-style accommodation for people to move on to after leaving temporary housing, has ‘bedevilled’ the city-region.
Reverend Ian Rutherford, a member of the Homelessness Action Network, said we need to be much more ambitious with ‘move-on accommodation’.
He said: “You can’t simply say we’re just going to have some emergency provision.
“It needs to lead somewhere so that when people are in the unfortunate situation of finding themselves on the street, they know they’ve got a place to go to settle and from that space to go to somewhere where they can sustain a secure place in the future.”
A draft of the strategy is now open for public consultation until 26 June.
Anyone who wishes to contribute to the development of the strategy can visit www.gmconsult.org.
The final strategy will be approved in the summer.
Salford mayor Paul Dennett, Eleanor Watts from the Riverside Group, Greater Manchester mayor Andy Burnham and Reverend Ian Rutherford.
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