Andy Burnham has urged local leaders to offer all rough sleepers in England a route off the streets by Christmas, as he pledges another £100m to end street homelessness. Arguing in the Guardian that rough sleeping has become so common it now “feels like part of the scenery”, Burnham promised he would mount a Covid-style campaign to get everyone off the streets this winter. The announcement solidifies tackling homelessness as a central policy for Burnham’s government, and gives voters a measure by which to judge his success – although without a concrete target for ministers to hit.
Homelessness campaigners welcomed the move, but warned more will need to be done to tackle the longer-term temporary accommodation crisis, which has given the UK the worst homelessness problem in the western world. In his article for the Guardian, the prime minister writes: “We see people bedded down in doorways and sat outside stations, carrying their lives in rucksacks and sleeping bags on their backs. And I think most people have the same reaction: this isn’t right.
But we’ve lived with it for so long that something that used to shock us now feels like part of the scenery.” He adds: “We did it in the pandemic. We got people out of the cold because, as a country, we decided it had to be done. Not to manage it, not to reduce it – but to end it.
And today, we’re taking the first step in getting it done. Officials say that money will pay for 1,200 new homes and help support 3,000 people over five years. On Wednesday, he will tell local leaders they must offer a route off the streets to anyone who wants one by Christmas, announcing an additional £102m for additional services such as medical care and addiction support to help them do so.
Of that, £8.4m will go to charities and other community organisations as part of the Ending Homelessness in Communities Fund. Burnham said he would not instruct local authorities and mayors how to use the money, saying they would know best which services were most needed in their areas. Officials said the prime minister was not considering changing the law to force local authorities to provide accommodation for any rough sleeper who asked for it.
At the moment they are only required to do so for people deemed a “priority need”, such as families with children. Burnham’s aides acknowledge that some people are likely to still be on the streets at Christmas, given authorities cannot force people into accommodation if they do not want it. But the prime minister is not setting a target for how much rough sleeping will have fallen by Christmas, with officials saying only that “real progress” should have been made.
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