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Greater Manchester will receive almost £3.8 million to develop a new city region-wide approach to preventing homelessness and reducing rough sleeping, Communities Secretary Sajid Javid confirmed yesterday (12 October 2017).

The funding will be used to develop new services and resources across all 10 boroughs of the region. This will include making hub-based services open 24 hours a day across Greater Manchester, to provide high quality support for people when they need it the most, and the adoption of a social letting agency approach across Greater Manchester to help those struggling to find secure accommodation.

These measures will enable the 10 boroughs of Great Manchester to work better together with clear systems in place to prevent homelessness and rough sleeping from happening in the first place.

Visiting Manchester yesterday, the Prime Minister Theresa May also announced that progress was being made on a housing deal with Greater Manchester to accelerate the delivery of new homes. This reaffirms this government’s commitment to the Northern Powerhouse.

Communities Secretary Sajid Javid said:

One person living on the street or without a home to call their own is too many. This package supports this government’s aims to transform the way we prevent homelessness and rough sleeping.

Greater Manchester has always been at the forefront of devolution and this is a landmark moment – the first devolved homelessness package.

I’m confident that the proposed plan will reach the needs of the city’s most vulnerable people and set a precedent for what other ambitious city regions can do.

The Greater Manchester package builds upon the government’s commitments to reducing homelessness and rough sleeping. These include:

• investing £550 million to 2020 for support and prevention programmes
• implementing the Homelessness Reduction Act, requiring local authorities to provide support earlier to prevent those at risk from becoming homeless
• investing a further £2 billion for affordable housing funding, bringing total investment to around £9 billion for a new generation of council and housing association homes

Andy Burnham, Mayor of Greater Manchester said:

We very much welcome this announcement by the government. This extra help is well-timed, much-needed and good news for Greater Manchester. It is a recognition of the innovative work underway here to help people sleeping rough, bringing together our public, private and voluntary sectors in a ground-breaking partnership.

This support from the government will help us go further and faster in achieving our goal of ending rough sleeping in Greater Manchester by 2020.

In addition to 24-hour hub services and a social letting agency, the package will:

• develop a shared ICT and database system – this will help to share data across the 10 local authorities so they can better able respond to homelessness and rough sleeping crises
• rollout the Greater Manchester Homelessness Action Network – this will support practitioners in the sector, connecting the many homelessness organisations across Greater Manchester
• build on the devolution agreement around health – this includes offering tailored health services for homeless people

Further information

The funding for the Greater Manchester homeless package will form part of the Greater Manchester Reform Investment Fund, the outcome of a government commitment to support Greater Manchester to establish an investment fund to support the vulnerable towards a brighter future.

The housing white paper committed to agreeing bespoke housing deals with authorities in high demand areas, which have a genuine ambition to build.

Greater Manchester has already been awarded up to £1.8 million as part of DCLG’s Social Impact Bond fund to provide personalised support for long-term rough sleepers on a payment-by-results basis.

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