Andy Burnham latest rough sleeping pledge: 'We can make this work'

Christmas is coming – and so is Andy Burnham’s self-imposed deadline to offer all rough sleepers a route off the street. So what’s happening on the ground?

Big Issue spoke to Tyron Julien, assistant director of rough sleeping services at Single Homeless Project in London, to find out how Burnham’s announcement in August has had an impact.

I think it is a wise move to be bold and make a statement that something needs to be achieved by a particular day, especially when there’s a moral imperative to it. There’s absolutely no reason for us to have so many people on the streets. It’s ridiculous.

So I was really pleased with the energy and the zeal with which he made the announcement and the weight in his language.

I’ve been asking my teams locally, even before the announcement was made: what are we going to do at Christmas? How are we going to reach those who are isolated, marginalised or forgotten about at that time? So his announcement was welcomed.

For me, this is where a No Wrong Door approach becomes really important – making sure people don’t fall through the gaps, including those experiencing hidden homelessness.

We’ve learnt through work such as the Women’s Rough Sleeping Census that not everyone experiencing homelessness is visible to traditional approaches. Also, what does this mean for people with no recourse to public funds? What support will there be for people with no local connection?

The challenge with the urgency and the timeframe is that we’ve seen before during Covid that ‘Everyone In’ can be everyone in. It can happen.

What comes next

But how do we keep everyone in? The impact I’ve seen is a real appetite from local authorities to engage with providers and think creatively about how we make this work.

There is a lot of positive energy and a real willingness to find solutions, which is great, but this places a strain on a relatively small homelessness sector. For me, there is an opportunity to build on that through a stronger cross-borough approach.

Rather than each area having to develop everything independently, we can bring boroughs, providers and partners together to share learning, expertise and resources and investment can be aligned.

I think that would be a much stronger approach – we know that you can’t just throw money at a problem and wise investment takes strategy.

We know we can make this work, we have evidence of that. The question is: how do we make it sustainable? That means bringing the wider system into the conversation from the outset, eg physical health, mental health, substance misuse and other partners who can help people sustain their homes and thrive.

We can’t look at it solely as a housing issue. If we do, then there’s a risk of people abandoning homes.

There is a real opportunity to create something that works across borough boundaries, making the best use of collective resources and building the partnerships needed for long-term success

Also in this week’s issue:

The charity warehouse offering families a lifeline

Why we have to remove the stigma attached to gambling

Mick Foley’s letter to my younger self