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In his short speech before going into Downing Street, Andy Burnham said his first instruction after passing through the door of No. 10 would be to ‘end rough sleeping in our country’. He made a similar promise in 2017 after winning the Greater Manchester mayoralty, when he promised to end rough sleeping in the area by 2020. To do that, he set up the Greater Manchester Mayor’s Homelessness Fund (to which he donated 15 per cent of his salary) and in 2018 promised ‘A Bed Every Night’. That scheme aims to help everyone who is rough sleeping or at risk of doing so, including people with no recourse to public funds, who councils do not legally have to help. Homelessness numbers in Greater Manchester fell, though in 2019 Burnham conceded that he would miss his target – and then the pandemic hit.
The government launched a national version of Burnham’s scheme, ‘Everyone In’, directing councils to do what Burnham had done, and get everyone, regardless of their legal status, into accommodation during the first national lockdown. It provided millions to do that – some £700 million for homelessness and rough sleeping in 2020/21 and £750 million the following year. Rough sleeping numbers across the country, including in Greater Manchester, collapsed. Across the country, an estimated 90 per cent of rough sleepers were given accommodation.
