Andy Burnham has pledged to give every person sleeping rough a route off the streets by Christmas as he unveiled the first steps in his drive to end rough sleeping in England.
The prime minister announced that new accommodation and support will be rolled out across England this winter based on the A Bed Every Night model he pioneered as Greater Manchester mayor.
Emergency accommodation will be made available alongside help with housing, health and other needs to help people out of homelessness, backed with increased funding of £442 million.
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“We did it in the pandemic. We can do it again. But it needs all of us. Government will put the money in. But I’m asking leaders in communities and sectors across society to play their part locally too.
“Let’s get people out of the cold. And let’s bring back hope.”
The government claimed the new policy will “not only change lives but have huge benefits for the whole country” citing research from Crisis that suggests preventing 40,000 people from becoming homeless for a year could save taxpayers around £370 million.
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Wait. The research said “preventing 40,000 people from becoming homeless would save taxpayers £370 million”… But he’s not proposing preventing homelessness, he’s proposing making homelessness more tolerable. So we’ll be out over £400 million and we won’t get the benefit of preventing 40k people becoming homeless? Am I reading that correctly?
Edit: To clarify, I’m all for making homelessness more tolerable, it’s the sloppy thinking I’m concerned about.