GM Mayor wants to make regional homelessness scheme permanent

Mr Burnham wants the city-region's ground-breaking approach to tackling rough sleeping to be put on a permanent footing.

He said the scheme, which has been used in Wigan, helps around 520 people every night across the city-region.

A Bed Every Night seeks to prevent and reduce levels of rough sleeping, address the wider support needs of those accessing the programme and enable them to move on to more suitable accommodation.

Mr Burnham has also been donating 15 per cent of his mayoral salary to the scheme.

He said: "On the first morning I was elected as mayor I did an early morning walkabout in Manchester city centre and I knew we had a huge task to turnaround a homelessness crisis that had spiralled out of control.

"But I made a firm commitment to tackle it and rallied people to the cause, and it is truly amazing to see what Greater Manchester has achieved over the last four years.

"Working together we can end rough sleeping.

"A Bed Every Night has been proven to be effective and has helped over 3,000 people who otherwise would have been left sleeping on our streets.”

A Bed Every Night has been funded through Greater Manchester investment, scaling up emergency accommodation and support and one-off events such as the Raise the Roof concert.

Voters will go to the polls in May 6 to decide who will be the elected first citizen of the city-region.

Mr Burnham has got his bid to gain a second term under way by pledging to continue donating 15 per cent of his salary to tackling homelessness if he is re-elected and keep supporting A Bed Every Night.

The full list of candidates has yet to be published but those who have announced they are standing against the incumbent Mr Burnham are: Laura Evans (Conservatives), Simon Lepori (Liberal Democrats), Melanie Horrocks (Green), Nick Buckley (Reform UK), Michael Elston (Independent) and Stephen Morris (English Democrats).

To find out more about the homelessness scheme visit www.bedeverynight.co.uk

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