‘A Bed Every Night’ plan for rough sleepers SEEMS to be working – but is it really?
Andy Burnham: It’s been so long since he has appeared in a story of national interest that this image is from 2016.
This would be encouraging if it weren’t for the fact that the government’s ‘snapshot’ figures of rough sleeping have been proved false.
So Greater Manchester’s claim to have cut rough sleeping by 44 per cent in two years via its ‘A Bed Every Night’ scheme is questionable.
However: The figures available show fewer people sleeping rough as a result of the scheme – so it seems fair to say that, no matter what the UK Statistics Authority says is the true size of the rough sleeper population, the Greater Manchester model is doing at least some good.
Initially a crisis response to the ‘Beast from the East’ cold weather snap in November 2018, A Bed Every Night has developed as a co-commissioned service with investment from Greater Manchester’s devolved health and social care services, homelessness, and prison and probation services, and has supported 3,400 people since its introduction. The scheme also enables those accessing help and support to recover and move into longer-term accommodation and a life away from the streets – since November 2018, 1,250 people have done just that.
For those who have slept rough for a substantial period of time, Greater Manchester’s Housing First pilot works alongside A Bed Every Night to provide ongoing intensive support in a home of choice. Funded by £7.6m of public money, Housing First in the city-region has so far helped 84 people off the streets into their own homes and is set to run for a further two years.
The scheme seems reminiscent of the ‘Utah’ model that This Site has praised in the past: get people off the streets and support them back into a home of their own, and you relieve pressure on services like the police and NHS that would otherwise have to deal with them.
There is still that question of the real number of rough sleepers.
If that total is genuinely more than five times what the government has claimed, then ‘A Bed Every Night’ may have merely slowed the Tory-driven increase in homelessness.
But that’s better than nothing and suggests that Andy Burnham deserves the extra funding he is requesting. But will he get it?
Have YOU donated to my crowdfunding appeal, raising funds to fight false libel claims by TV celebrities who should know better? These court cases cost a lot of money so every penny will help ensure that wealth doesn’t beat justice.
Vox Political needs your help!
If you want to support this site
(but don’t want to give your money to advertisers)
you can make a one-off donation here:
Here are four ways to be sure you’re among the first to know what’s going on.
1) Register with us by clicking on ‘Subscribe’ (in the left margin). You can then receive notifications of every new article that is posted here.
2) Follow VP on Twitter @VoxPolitical
3) Like the Facebook page at https://www.facebook.com/VoxPolitical/
Join the Vox Political Facebook page.
4) You could even make Vox Political your homepage at http://voxpoliticalonline.com
And do share with your family and friends – so they don’t miss out!
If you have appreciated this article, don’t forget to share it using the buttons at the bottom of this page. Politics is about everybody – so let’s try to get everybody involved!
Buy Vox Political books so we can continue
fighting for the facts.
The Livingstone Presumption is now available
in either print or eBook format here:
Health Warning: Government! is now available
in either print or eBook format here:
The first collection, Strong Words and Hard Times,
is still available in either print or eBook format here:
Andy Burnham: The man who said the mansion tax was ‘the politics of envy’
In the 2010 leadership election, his face seemed to light up when someone asked about attacking Iran (one of the advantages of watching a recording).
Don’t tend to trust figures, they likely include homeless persons who have sadly passed away while sleeping rough in that “reduction”.
It’s well known that the homeless people move about because they always get moved by the police so they tend not to sleep in doorways of shops incase they get shouted abuse or even attacked so they try and find somewhere else like under a bridge where they would be left alone and out of sight from the police and drunken yobs.
Perhaps the answer is to somehow find a way for homelessness to affect Bojob’s hedge fund buddies and immediate action will be taken.
For example, look at all the flood damage to peoples lives and the Scarlet PMpernel is nowhere to be seen but when the Coronaviruus sheds billions from the stock exchange, a sudden Photo-op at a Kettering Hospital and a COBRA meeting.