Government policies 'creating' more homelessness, says Andy Burnham

Andy Burnham has said the government needs to be more “radical” to end homelessness, telling ITV News that the Home Office and the Treasury are making the problem worse.

In an exclusive interview ahead of the government’s publication of its long-awaited homelessness strategy, the Mayor of Greater Manchester called for a permanent return to the “everyone in” policy adopted during the pandemic, which saw the government house all rough sleepers to protect them from the virus.

Burnham vowed to end street homelessness in Greater Manchester when he was elected in 2017, and since then, rough sleeping has fallen by 42%.

He said the region’s ‘Bed Every Night’ policy is providing 600 rooms each night for rough sleepers, but nationally, there wasn’t funding to sustain it.

“I really feel the right thing to do as we go into the next phase of this Labour government is to go back to ‘everyone in’,” he told ITV News.

“That’s what a ‘Bed Every Night is’, or what it’s trying to be, it’s harder for us to sustain it, though, when there isn’t funding in homelessness across the whole of the country. We’ve had some funding, but not enough.”

Burnham, a former Labour minister, blamed the government for “policies that actually create” homelessness.

He singled out the chancellor’s decision to freeze housing benefit levels, and the Home Office’s policy of evicting asylum seekers from their accommodation once they are given status to remain, with nowhere to go.

“It does feel that we are having to work around some of the problems created for us by the Westminster system. And I’d say it to any government of any colour,” Burnham said.

“I’m going to be honest and say the task that we have faced has not been made any easier by the actions of the Home Office in recent times, and often the Home Office will take decisions with no reference to what it means for councils.

“Evicting people with very, very short notice. People who’ve been given settled status are just literally evicted the next day and unsurprisingly, they haven’t got anywhere to go. That has been really frustrating. It began under the last government, and this government has made some moves to stop that, but it’s still a difficult, difficult situation.”

Greater Manchester Mayor Andy Burnham tells Daniel Hewitt the task of solving homelessness ‘has not been made any easier by the actions of the Home Office’ in dealing with asylum seekers and refugees

He also attacked the decision by the Labour government to freeze local housing allowance, which sets the amount renters receive in housing benefit, until at least 2026. Private rents are rising, but freezing housing allowance means more and more properties become increasingly affordable.

“The Westminster world, because sometimes they pose as tough on benefits, [says]: ‘let’s freeze local housing allowance’,” Burnham said.

“All that means is families in private rented accommodation see a growing gap between the rent that being have to pay and the level of support they’re getting from the system, and it gets bigger to the point where they’re made homeless and they have to present to the council.

“They end up in temporary accommodation, which is terrible for those kids, terrible for those families, but also creates a bill that the councils haven’t got a budget for, and it doesn’t make any sense.

“It does feel to me [with] Westminster, I don’t think they are always really getting underneath the reality of what causes homelessness, what actually would put people on a path away from it into recovery, and stop bringing through policies that actually create it, such as those changes in the benefit system, and particularly the repeated freeze on local housing allowance.”

The Greater Manchester Mayor, who has refused to rule out a return to Westminster to run in any future Labour leadership contest, said ending rough sleeping and homelessness would require a more “radical” approach.

“[The government] have given us more funding for homeless support, particularly employing social workers within the mix. So all of that is positive and we have had more funding into our system, but what I am saying is homelessness is fixable, it requires something more radical if you really want to fix it.

“If you go for that ‘housing first’ approach, ‘Everyone in’, a ‘Bed Every Night’, those type of approaches, in the end, in my view, you save money. And that’s what I would encourage them to do. So I’m not saying they haven’t done lots of good things. They have done lots of really important things. But from here, let’s get into a more radical approach.

“I realise the pressures on the government, but there’s a big national shift the government said it wants to see in the ten-year health plan, moving from treatment to prevention. This is the perfect policy.

“If you end rough sleeping, you are taking major steps to improve people’s physical and mental health and put them on a path to recovery. And I think that’s what we should be committing to as a country.”

Announcing the strategy, Housing Secretary Steve Reed said, “Homelessness is one of the most profound challenges we face as a society, because at the heart, it’s about people. Families deserve stability, children need a safe place to grow, and individuals simply want the dignity of a home.

This strategy is shaped by the voices of those who’ve lived through homelessness and the frontline workers who fight tirelessly to prevent it. 

“Through our new strategy we can build a future where homelessness is rare, brief, and not repeated. With record investment, new duties on public services, and a relentless focus on accountability, we will turn ambition into reality.”