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Manchester to invest further £5.6m on rough sleeping initiative
The mayor of Greater Manchester will invest £5.6m on the second phase of a scheme which aims to find accommodation for every rough sleeper in the city.
The investment package will fund the mayor’s A Bed Every Night (ABEN) initiative from April 2019 to June 2020, and is part of a wider commitment to end rough sleeping within the Greater Manchester Combined Authority (GMCA) by May 2020.
The majority of the funding – £5.5m – will be spent on grants to the 10 local authorities within the GMCA to fund emergency accommodation and support for up to 420 individuals.
ABEN was initially announced by mayor Andy Burnham shortly after he came into office in 2017.
In June this year, Inside Housing reported on the GMCA’s figures which showed ABEN had helped 1,423 people who had been sleeping rough and supported 480 of them into housing.
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The largest source of funding for the latest investment package comes from the mayor’s homelessness charity, which will invest £1.2m in the scheme.
A further £1m is expected to come from Tackle4MCR, a charity set up by former Manchester City captain Vincent Kompany.
The GMCA also said it is commencing dialogue with the government regarding the additional £54m announced for homelessness and rough sleeping as part of the recent Spending Round.
Mr Burnham will seek approval for the funding arrangements at a meeting of the combined authority on Friday.
