GRroundbreaking housing scheme piloted in Greater Manchester has provided homes for more than 300 people with experiences of homelessness, and helped to change the way partners work together across the city-region to end rough sleeping once and for all.
Today (Friday 22 July) Mayor of Greater Manchester Andy Burnham joined staff and delivery partners at Greater Manchester Housing First (GMHF) at an event in Manchester to mark the end of the initial three-year pilot scheme. Set up in 2019, the scheme recognises the importance of housing as a fundamental resource and vital to helping people get back on their feet.
Starting from the principle that people have a right to housing, Housing First uses housing as a platform to enable people with multiple and complex needs to move away from homelessness. The scheme also has at its heart the principle of co-production, where people with lived experience of rough sleeping and homelessness use their insight to help shape the services provided to others.
The Greater Manchester pilot – one of three areas chosen nationally – has supported 330 tenancies for people with entrenched experiences of rough sleeping, achieving an 82 per cent retention rate over the three-year period. GMHF is a partnership between 12 organisations across the city-region, led by the Great Places Housing Group.
Mayor of Greater Manchester Andy Burnham said:
“What’s been achieved over the past three years by Greater Manchester’s Housing First partnership is genuinely astounding. Three hundred and thirty people have been given the keys to their own home and personalised support to take back control of their lives.
“All of this springs from one simple principle: that safe and affordable housing ought to be a human right. It’s an ethos that we’ve fully taken on board, and everything we do across our homelessness and rough-sleeping response – from A Bed Every Night, to the Rough Sleeper Accommodation Programme, and other initiatives – is geared towards that person-centred approach, learning from lived experience and offering quality support to get people back on their feet. At a time of extreme cost-of-living pressures, when any one of our residents could be just one run of bad luck away from losing their home, this has never been more important.
“That’s also why it’s crucial that Housing First can continue helping people here in Greater Manchester and across the country, and why its core principle – the right to safe housing – needs to be written into UK law.”
Today’s event also comes as Greater Manchester has recorded a further fall in the number of people sleeping on the streets, based on a single night snapshot in May. Seventy-five people were counted – a figure that, pending verification, indicates another reduction since March, when 79 people were counted.
Greater Manchester Housing First Programme Lead Emily Cole said:
“The last three years have been an incredible journey. From setting up the infrastructure from scratch, getting the right partners in place to deliver the service and support people into their own homes – and all in the wake of a global pandemic – the result is truly phenomenal.
“The model puts people in control of their recovery journey and we as a partnership have put people with lived experience at the heart of the programme design with co-production being a fundamental principle of our partnership, which has ensured the delivery of a responsive service to meet peoples ongoing needs and support their recovery.
“The event was a chance to thank the people on the frontline, give them a chance to reflect on everything they have been able to achieve, while looking forward to the next two years as we continue to challenge the system to create meaningful change.
“The partnership has created a wide network of services across Greater Manchester including housing, health and the voluntary sector to name just a few and it’s a credit to everyone who has made the last three years such a success.”
