Project aims to help homeless Wiganers to get off - and stay off - the streets

Run over three years, The Greater Manchester Housing First (GMHF) pilot, wants to rehouse more than 400 people, who are homeless or at the risk of being homeless across all 10 boroughs including Wigan.

Now four new delivery organisations have been selected for the scheme and will be joining the partnership in January next year.

They include Zone D covering Wigan, Trafford and Salford run by Humankind.

These new organisations will join the existing partners which are Riverside, Jigsaw, Stockport Homes Group, Petrust, Greater Manchester Mental Health NHS Trust, The Bond Board and lead partner Great Places.

Programme lead Emily Cole said: “From the outset, we planned to scale up and use the learning from the initial stages of the pilot to ensure we were meeting the emerging needs of people being referred to the programme and increase the breadth of expertise within our partnership.

“Each of the organisations joining the pilot has demonstrated the values and expertise to deliver the specific services we require in each of the zones across Greater Manchester and we are excited to be able to scale up and work with the new partners.

“The pilot is making a huge difference across Greater Manchester and we are at an exciting stage to be able to meet our aims and ambitions and drive system change.”

The pilot was commissioned by Mayor Andy Burnham and the GMCA. It began in 2019 and is a £7.6m project tasked to rehouse 330 people during its lifespan.

It was one of three pilots run nationally to test the Housing First methodology which uses housing as a platform to enable individuals with multiple and complex needs to begin recovery and move away from homelessness.