Andy Burnham has outlined his plans to tackle homelessness in Greater Manchester on his first day as mayor, promising to “put words into action”, and donating 15% of his £110,000 salary to a newly created homelessness fund.



The former MP for Leigh, who was elected to the mayoral role on Friday with 63% of the vote, spent his first morning as mayor with the Riverside Street Outreach team meeting rough sleepers in Manchester city centre.

His pledge to end rough sleeping in Greater Manchester by 2020 formed a key pillar of his campaign, and the former shadow home secretary claims he has met homeless people who registered to vote in order to back him.

“If you walk through the streets of Manchester – contrary to what the prime minister says – you can see that this is not a country that is working for everybody right now,” said Burnham on Monday morning.

Figures released in January showed that homelessness in the region had risen by 41% over the previous year and had quadrupled since 2010. The figures, based on a count conducted in November, estimated that 189 people were sleeping rough in Greater Manchester, up from 134 at the same point in 2015. Charities say that such audits severely underestimate the scale of the problem.

“Greater Manchester has been fortunate enough to witness some of the fastest economic growth nationally over the past decade, but alongside this we have seen growing inequality which damages us all,” said Burnham.

“Whilst the city centre’s skyline is filled with cranes, our streets should not be crowded with people who have no roof over their head. Rough sleeping and homelessness are not inevitable consequences of a 21st century economy.”

Burnham is calling on businesses and members of the public to join him in contributing to his Greater Manchester mayor’s homelessness fund. The money will be distributed to frontline services through the Greater Manchester Homelessness Action Network – co-chaired by former minister Ivan Lewis, who is defending Bury South seat in the election, and councillor Beth Knowles – and will, in part, go towards creating more supported accommodation and mental health services.

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The mayor welcomed Manchester’s property boom but said that people felt there had been too much of a focus on luxury developments instead of supporting pre-exisiting communities.



“My appeal goes out to the property sector and the business community more broadly to say, if you have got an empty building that could be used even temporarily – for six months or a year – then come forward and let us use it,” he said. “It could potentially provide temporary shelter for people.”

Simon Partington from the Riverside housing charity said that, if nothing else, Burnham’s focus on the city’s rough sleepers would bring much-needed publicity to the problem. He said the rise in homelessness in Greater Manchester was down to a “perfect storm” of hostel closures, cuts to policing and council services and the rise in the use of the former legal high spice.

He said it was important for people to understand that the problem was a complex one. “There’s so much more to it than people just not having somewhere to live and ending up on the streets,” he said. “There are mental health issues, there are drug issues, drink issues ... Throwing a one-size-fits-all solution at it doesn’t work.”

Jo Wilson, a volunteer at the Booth Centre – a homelessness charity in Manchester – who attended the launch event, said she was impressed by Burnham’s commitment to the issue. She was homeless for a month in 2013, following a two-and-a-half-year stint in prison, before getting help from the Booth Centre. She said that giving to the homelessness fund was better than giving money to people on the streets.

“By giving people a pound or two, you’re not helping them to get off the street. It’s just keeping them stuck there,” she says, arguing that hunger was not a big problem for Manchester’s rough sleepers. “There are loads of street kitchens and day centres where you can get breakfast, dinner and tea every day, Monday to Sunday.”



“Basically there’s a lack of accommodation,” she says. “There aren’t enough hostels to go to. And there isn’t enough move-on accommodation from the hostels, so people are getting stuck in the hostels for months and months on end.”

When asked if he would discourage people from giving money to people on the streets, Burnham said it was not his job to lecture people. “I do it myself,” he said. “I think we all probably do. We want to help. There is a serious point being made though, which is help is better if it’s given via a structured approach, which is about getting to the root cause of people’s problems rather than just managing their situation where they are.”

• This article was amended on 9 May 2017. The original incorrectly stated that Ivan Lewis was the MP for Bury North. In fact, he has been MP for Bury South since 1997, and is contesting the seat again in the 2017 general election.