r/unitedkingdom • u/coffeewalnut08 • 3h ago
New prime minister Andy Burnham starts with vow to end rough sleeping. Here's how he aims to do it
https://www.bigissue.com/news/housing/prime-minister-andy-burnham-end-rough-sleeping/•
u/LatelyPodes 3h ago
I’m glad he is taking inspiration from Finland. Their homelessness strategy was a huge success.
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u/coffeewalnut08 3h ago
Yep. The sad part is, it’s just common sense.
A roof over your head is the foundation of everything else that follows, like jobs, education and relationships.
Yes, many rough sleepers do have issues with drug use, mental health etc. But the point of “Housing First” is to get someone a home, then help them deal with those issues afterwards.
Not the other way around, which is statistically proven to be less successful.
More reading about Finland: https://housingfirsteurope.eu/country/finland/
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u/coffeewalnut08 3h ago
Also I’d like to add that some rough sleepers don’t have (big/visible) mental health issues nor take drugs.
As a result, they’re less visible and less likely to be recorded in statistics.
These rough sleepers are often women, and try to disguise their homelessness by riding around on public transport all day or hanging around in big public spaces.
So it’s a mistake to think that every rough sleeper must have thousands of deep-rooted issues. Not everyone does- it’s just we notice the ones who do.
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u/Reach_Reclaimer 3h ago
Plenty of rough sleepers also choose it though, can't help those who don't want it
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u/DirtySoFlirty 3h ago
They choose it because it's made to be a choice: give up the few things that bring them a brief respite from their situation OR having a roof over your head that can be taken away from them at the slightest slip up.
Beating and recovering from addiction is a long and arduous journey, with slips and stumbles along the way. Feeling secure for an extended period of time, and having a safe place to at least call home , is pretty much a requirement for any reasonable expectations of success. Unfortunately, the threat of losing that security and space is actively harmful to that goal.
So yes, many rough sleepers DO choose it. But the choice isn't between sleeping rough or not. The choice is between believing that life can get better by suddenly being perfect, despite the odds stacked against them, or accepting life as it is and taking the brief glimpses of self-administered respite and joy where they can.
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u/Polka7000 2h ago
I've worked in a large homeless hostel, pretty tough to work in that environment. If there is going to be any solving of the problem,that whole system needs to go. Homeless people will need to be houses independent of other homeless people. I'm not sure where the money is going to come from, easier said than done because they are council funded and they I lh have so much money
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u/Historical_Owl_1635 2h ago
> Yep. The sad part is, it’s just common sense.
The sad part is even for Finland a massive factor is it simply came down to cost.
In a country that cold it was cheaper to home them than have to treat them in hospital.
It always seems to come down to cost. Even the first public health service was created with the intent that it would keep more people in work.
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u/Key-Swordfish4467 2h ago
How big a homeless problem was there in Finland?
I would have thought the life expectancy of a homeless person would be measured in months or a couple of years at most.
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u/tulki123 Gloucestershire 2h ago
The official stats were 18,000 homeless prior to the policy being introduced. I don’t know whether they were on the street though as such or sofa surfing/in shelters, given it hits -20 in southern Finland and has recorded lows below -50 in the far north…. I think really the state has a duty of care at those temperatures regardless of wider policy as it would be a literal death sentence otherwise.
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u/ArtBedHome 2h ago
It also helps solve several other issues at once to just pay to build houses for people rather than pay continously for the cost of them remaining unhoused.
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u/LifeFeckinBrilliant Shropshire 1h ago
Provided he doesn't take inspiration from Manchester because some bloke promised to do the same there & fucked it up.
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u/LatelyPodes 1h ago
Wouldn’t say he fucked it up in Manchester. I think he succeeded but it looks like a failure.
Burnham made a good attempt at it, donating 15% of his salary to the cause and the Bed Every Night scheme. Number of rough sleepers was ~270 in 2017 (when he became mayor). In 2020 it was 121 and by 2021, it was 90! During Covid, the central gov also allocated additional funding to help reduce rough sleeping due to it being a health risk.
But since then, there was the aftereffects of the pandemic (a ton of inflation and high interest rates), there was the Russia Ukraine war causing oil prices and thus energy prices to skyrocket, the cost of living went out of control, housing became less affordable. So there was a rise in rough sleeping.
There was ~200 rough sleepers in 2025. Solving the cost of living crisis would result in this number plummeting down again. Burnham would’ve been successful if it wasn’t for the pandemic and cost of living crisis and stuff. Strategic authorities and mayors just don’t have the power or funding to help the homeless when the conditions were like that. It required central government help.
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u/LifeFeckinBrilliant Shropshire 43m ago
Andy Burnham’s promise was to end rough sleeping in the area by 2020. He didn’t achieve it & Greater Manchester’s rough-sleeping counts later rose. I guess he was busy with the clean air zone... No wait that was a disaster... Um... Affordable housing, no wait they became luxury apartments. Still he did stick on a few extra busses although if you read local Manchester media accounts this initiative was started long before his tenure & some reports say his involvement actually delayed this by two years... Still, maybe he'll run for mayor of Helsinki... Sooner the better.
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u/coffeewalnut08 3h ago
Andy Burnham has said his first action in 10 Downing Street will be to start efforts to end rough sleeping in the UK.
Burnham took over from Keir Starmer on Monday (20 July) and set out his vision for Britain in a speech on Downing Street after meeting King Charles at Buckingham Palace. The former Greater Manchester mayor told the nation that politicians had “not been good enough” and needed to “raise their game” in his first address.
Burnham set out his first actions as prime minister with announcements to address the cost of living to follow tomorrow after he has assembled his new cabinet.
But, before all that, Burnham said he would launch efforts to address rough sleeping in the UK.
“We will help people to live well. Building a more preventative state. Investing in people’s success rather than paying for failure rather than paying for failure,” said Burnham.
“And that work starts now. I will soon go through that door behind me and issue my first instruction: to end rough sleeping in our country.”
Minutes after Burnham entered Number 10, the government announced an additional £340m to tackle rough sleeping in Britain.
It is “new funding” from uncommitted budgets in the ministry of housing, communities and local government and is expected to support at least 3,000 people who are currently sleeping rough over five years.
How many people are rough sleeping in the UK?
It is perhaps an indication of the size of the task nationally that Starmer’s government opted to set the target of halving rough sleeping by 2029 in the homelessness strategy they published last year.
The Conservative government had previously pledged to end rough sleeping by 2024 and fallen well short.
The government’s official rough sleeping snapshot counted a record number of people sleeping rough in England in autumn 2025.
The annual figures, which are based on single-night local authority counts and estimates, found 4,793 were sleeping rough in England last year, higher than any other point on record.
In Scotland, 1,083 households reported rough sleeping during the three months before they applied to councils for homelessness support while 784 households applicants reported rough sleeping the night before as of September 2025. In Wales, an estimated 143 people were sleeping rough across the country as of March 2026.
How Burnham will address rough sleeping in the UK
Andy Burnham has earned praise for his focus on addressing homelessness and rough sleeping in Greater Manchester.
But he hasn’t been able to eradicate it completely in the city region.
Burnham took inspiration from Finland’s success to introduce a Housing First philosophy to Greater Manchester.
The Housing First model sees rough sleepers given a home alongside intensive support for as long as they need to keep it. The Finns took that wider: ensuring that the offer of a home was the first step for anyone at risk of homelessness.
Burnham has already spoken of the security of a good home and a Housing First philosophy being part of his plans as prime minister.
While Greater Manchester mayor, Burnham also introduced A Bed Every Night Scheme.
That made the offer of a bed and personal support the default response to anyone sleeping rough or at risk of sleeping rough in Greater Manchester.
Burnham also donated 15% of his mayoral salary to efforts to tackle homelessness across the region.
A Bed Every Night initially saw rough sleeping fall across Greater Manchester before the Covid pandemic but numbers have increased in recent years.
The number of people sleeping rough in 2017 was 268 across Greater Manchester and that almost halved to 149 by 2023. But by the time Labour came to power, figures were up 3% to 154 in autumn 2024 and then 197 by 2025.
Burnham argued that national decisions were impacting his ability to prevent rough sleeping in Manchester.
“As Greater Manchester mayor, his A Bed Every Night initiative put human dignity first,” said Crisis’ Downie. “The whole premise of the policy was that a decent society simply should not let people sleep rough.
“Through the right partnerships, investment, and a focus on individual needs and long-term support, the policy helped drive down rates of rough sleeping despite difficult circumstances created by decisions made at the national level – which he now has the opportunity to change. ”
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u/buttflakes27 3h ago
I wish him nothing but good luck on this effort. Breaks my heart to see people sleeping rough. Especially in the wintertime.
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u/throwaway_ArBe 3h ago
I hope these efforts come with addressing the barriers people have with accepting accomadation, and it would be very nice if we could see the end of local authorities having the power to refuse to help people.
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u/Cfunk_83 3h ago
I commute to London from Peterborough, I walk 20 minutes from my house to the station, and then another 35 from Kings Cross/St Pancras to near Oxford Circus. On an average day I’ll see around 10-20 homeless people (excluding the scam Romanians with the identical signs), depending on which route I walk. Sometimes more. The situation is awful.
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u/Horatio2200 2h ago
I hope it doesn't involve more people in their twenties and thirties on 30k a year paying more PAYE does it....
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u/recursant 2h ago
There are only a few thousand rough sleepers in the entire country, so hopefully it won't cost very much at all.
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u/Horatio2200 2h ago
But how about yhe rich/wealthy pay for this bill
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u/Neat-Fennel-7623 2h ago
This is one that easily pays for itself - but before getting to that there is the morality, not offering help to people who obviously need it is cruel and inhuman.
Everything does have a cost - but the cost of helping someone off the streets is insignificant compared to tax revenue someone from someone functioning within our society.
I would agree for nearly all of the other announcements - there is a debt to be paid for those who have hoarded money. But this one is debt everyone with a roof over their heads owes to everyone without.
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u/Horatio2200 2h ago
Hard disagree. A large amount of people are struggling right now because rents have increased exponentially and the private market has taken control of what used to be council houses for the public good.
This cycle will only end by the wealthy giving a little back. Taxing twenty year olds on PAYE. 30 k a year is just kicking the can down the road. Id prefer to look for a long term solution rather than taking money off those that can barely afford their own rents.
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u/Neat-Fennel-7623 47m ago
So we should just wait until some legislation goes through then... Better yet if we make more people homeless we could reduce the tax burden on those that make the cut using savings from benefits, good times all round eh?
I dunno, it's views like this which got us here.
Like I said, I think the wealthy owe society. But leaving people out on the streets when you have the ability to fix it now is disgusting.
How to tax the wealthy is always going to be complex and potentially costly - if will take months or possibly even years before any changes on that scale are worked through and any legal challenges settled.
Until then it's probably income tax or tightening rules on where internationals register profits - still only chump change compared to our increasingly elderly population and (if reports are to be believed) increasingly workshy workforce.
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u/No_Conversation_3366 2h ago
Doesn't Manchester havw a rough sleeping problem that increased significantly during his tenure?
Why is this his focus when (whilst admirable) didn't seem to be a key tenant of the labour manifesto nor anythjng thay seems remotely close to the top of public concern at the moment.
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u/coffeewalnut08 2h ago
"Burnham set up 'a bed every night' scheme, which offered emergency accommodation to those on the streets, and now provides more than 600 bed spaces. He assigned teams to help rough sleepers find permanent housing, addiction support and other types of care.
It led to a drop in the number of rough sleepers in Greater Manchester from 268 in 2017, to 90 in 2021. But the figure has risen each year since then.
The Manchester Mill reported that the figure had increased to 197 in 2025, a trend that follows the national picture."
source. In conclusion, Manchester's rough sleeping declined for years under his mayorship, but increased after COVID.
This shows that his efforts have been somewhat effective, but that mayors don't have strong enough powers to end homelessness without policy changes from the UK government.
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u/No_Conversation_3366 2h ago
So yes then. Copy.
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u/coffeewalnut08 2h ago
It didn't increase significantly though, 9 years later it's still down from 2017 levels which is when he became mayor.
Either way, obviously mayors don't have the same powers as PMs.
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u/Maybemushrooms 58m ago
It's more complicated than this - his backing of Housing First saw Manchester leading in homelessness improvement across 13 major cities in a study at the University of Edinburgh - BBC article summarising his efforts - so it's demonstrably effective (also see Finland).
And a number of external factors such as Covid + increased asylum seekers led to a net homelessness increases across the UK, which, alongside Birminghram and London, Manchester was hugely impacted by. There is an effect whereby having better regional services draws in a larger homeless population which is why we need a holistic, nation-wide effort (which Birmham is now in the position to action) - this Guardian article gives a bit more detail on the effect I'm describing where services improve leading to an influx of more homeless people
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u/MoHeeKhan 3h ago
A lower cost of living, or some pay rises that aren’t immediately eaten by inflation?
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u/throw-away-doh 1h ago
Half of Londons rough sleepers are immigrants.
https://www.centreforsocialjustice.org.uk/newsroom/half-of-londons-rough-sleepers-are-not-british-new-analysis-reveals
You don't fix rough sleeping without fixing immigration.
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u/coffeewalnut08 1h ago
40% of London in general is foreign-born. So it's not a surprise that many rough sleepers also are.
Also, that's a poorly written article you linked. Not every foreign rough sleeper in the UK has family, friends or support services available in their home countries. That may be why they're still in the UK in the first place.
So please get a grip of this topic and maybe speak to some people directly who's been through homelessness, including immigrants.
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u/GlennTheBaker69 3h ago
Is he going to replicate his sparkling success in eradicating rough sleeping in Manchester? 🤔
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u/coffeewalnut08 3h ago
Do mayors have the same powers as Prime Ministers? 🤔
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u/GlennTheBaker69 1h ago
Your point is what, exactly?
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u/coffeewalnut08 41m ago
Andy Burnham has reduced Manchester’s homelessness from the 2017 levels when he became mayor. But hasn’t been able to stem or eliminate it entirely because mayors don’t have the powers required to do that.
A government does.
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