Burnham Pledges Route Off Streets for Rough Sleepers by Christmas
The prime minister, Andrew Burnham, launched a national drive to offer every rough sleeper “a route off the streets” by Christmas, backed by an extra £102m for medical care, addiction support and charities. He called for a “Covid-style” winter campaign and a first-of-its-kind national summit in the autumn. Homelessness charities welcomed the money but questioned whether the timescale and funding matched the scale of the problem.
The pledge revives the “Everyone In” approach of the pandemic, when emergency action briefly cleared the streets, and stakes the government’s credibility on a visible, hard-to-fake outcome by a fixed date. Rough sleeping has risen sharply in recent years, and Mr Burnham’s framing, that it has come to “feel like part of the scenery”, is a deliberate bid to make it politically unacceptable again. The difficulty is that the causes, from addiction and mental illness to a chronic shortage of housing, outlast any winter blitz. The extra money is modest against a total programme of £442m. Watch whether councils can hit the Christmas target and what happens to those housed once the campaign ends.