Mayor bids for cash to continue 'housing first' scheme

More than 400 homeless people in Greater Manchester have been helped under the scheme

Greater Manchester mayor Andy Burnham is bidding for more cash to run a scheme giving rough sleepers a home without conditions to allow them "breathing space to recover".

Mr Burnham has applied for central government funding to continue a pilot of the "housing first" model before it ends in 2025.

More than 400 people have been helped under the scheme, which prioritises giving homeless people a house first before offering support for issues like mental health and drug use.

The Labour politician said the scheme had reduced rough sleeping in the city region by taking people out of an "endless cycle" of crisis.

The government awarded £25m in 2017 to three areas to test the scheme.

Greater Manchester received £8m, with the rest going to Liverpool and the West Midlands.

Mr Burnham announced the funding bid at an event in the People’s History Museum in Manchester

It was inspired by a philosophy adopted in Finland which has been credited with vastly reducing homelessness in the country.

About 75% of the 413 people in Greater Manchester who were helped under the scheme, which was rolled out in 2019, sustained their tenancies.

They all had "complex and long-standing experiences of homelessness", a spokesman for the Greater Manchester Combined Authority said

Lisa, a woman from the city who was made homeless on three separate occasions, said the scheme had "given me my life back".

She said she was first left without a home when her mother took her own life, then due to the domestic violence of a partner, and finally due to a house fire.

"I just went down a slippery slope", Lisa said, until she was given support by Housing First.

“My advice would be, just do not give up, there’s always something around the corner," she continued.

"I nearly gave up last time, until Housing First came along. And that was it then, with the help of them I just went from strength to strength."

Finnish ambassador Jukka Siukosaari said roll out of the model was a "marathon, not a short-term run".

Mr Burnham said the scheme demonstrated that "if you set people up to succeed – they largely do”.

The housing first philosophy could save the "billions" in welfare support if it was applied nationally by ensuring "everyone has a good safe home", he added.

He spoke at the Finnish embassy in Manchester, where the country's ambassadors to the UK Jukka Siukosaari discussed how the model worked in his home nation.

"For us it has taken from 1985 to now, almost forty years, now the model is there", he said.

"Housing has to come first, the you need solution for the other problems".