Can Andy Burnham end rough sleeping?

0:00This is The Guardian.

0:09Today, we head to Manchester to see how Andy Burnham got on when he tried to end rough sleeping.

0:24It's a breezy day in mid-March and I'm walking along the canal in central Manchester. I've just passed the Castlefield district where you can easily pay seven pounds for a pint and a one-bed flat will cost you at least a grand in rent every month. I'm here to visit the first resident of a different kind of community. Embassy is Britain's first purpose-built village for homeless people, constructed under two Victorian viaducts carrying the city's trams and trains. How's things? Hey, nice to see you. Dealing with the wind. I know, it's so windy today, isn't it? I'm saying hello to Sid Williams. Embassy Village is his baby.

1:04He's the director and co-founder of Embassy, a Christian charity. I was last here with him four and a half years ago, when it could not have looked more different. There were syringes everywhere, broken glass. We found one man sleeping on a filthy mattress underneath a leaking railway arch. I'm with Joel, a Guardian photographer, who back then thought Sid had no chance. Joel, you remember Sid? Well, Sid might not remember me, but I took your picture about four and a half years ago. I was the cynical one who said, you won't make it happen. Right, OK, well, you know. Believe in miracles! Embassy Village is a bit of a miracle.

1:4641 pristine flats are surrounded by landscape gardens with ducks and geese swimming in the canals on each side of the village. There are even beehives. It's a big day for Embassy. It's move-in day. And the first to get his keys is Chris, a 57-year-old with an excellent mohawk. So you've got the honour of being the first resident to move in. I know, I have, yeah. Nerve-wracking, isn't it? Chris has spent most of his life sleeping rough. And do you mind telling me how long you were homeless for? How long? Which is the best part of my life, really. It's all I knew, yeah. Just travelling from town to town in tents.

2:26Getting what I can. So when was the last time you had your own place? I think it was about six or seven years ago. OK. He can't quite believe this is his new home. So you've already got your keys?

2:45After you.

2:56I wasn't expecting it being like this. What do you think? It's really nice, yeah. Somebody's already made the bed for you. No, that's good. It can come every day. So how does this compare to where you've been living recently? It's different. A lot different. So I think I'm lucky. I'm very lucky.

3:19When he became the mayor of Greater Manchester in 2017, Andy Burnham pledged to end rough sleeping. He never quite managed it. But during the nine years he ran the region, a whole array of innovative projects popped up, like Embassy Village, trying to get people off the streets and into a home. On his very first day as Prime Minister last week, Burnham repeated his pledge, but this time for the whole country. I issue my first instruction to end rough sleeping in our country.

3:59can he do it from the guardian i'm helen pidd today in focus lessons from manchester in ending rough sleeping

4:14hi jessica murray welcome back to today in focus thanks for being here thanks for having me so you're the guardian social affairs correspondent the perfect person to speak to about rough sleeping and our Prime Minister's very bold pledge to end it. It was something that was very familiar to me from my years in Greater Manchester because he promised to do the exact same thing then when he was first elected in 2017. How did he go about doing it, first of all? So in Manchester, Andy Burnham launched the Abed Every Night scheme in 2018, which was pretty kind of radical. There's nothing else like it in the country and essentially kind kind of did what it said on the tin.

4:52It was about getting a bed for anyone in the city who was rough sleeping. Why it was different to what we've seen elsewhere is that there was a very low barrier to entry. So in a lot of other parts of the country, you have to prove a local connection or you have to prove that you're sort of high priority needs. There's quite a lot of boxes that you need to take essentially before you can get access to that support. Whereas in Manchester, it was essentially if you are rough sleeping and you're in Manchester, you can access that. And it also included a lot of wraparound support. So it wasn't just a bed.

5:21There was also kind of caseworkers who would help someone if they had mental health problems, drug and alcohol addiction issues, that kind of thing. And I had quite a lot of good success in the early years. It really, it brought rough sleeping down in the city from between 2017 and 2020, it reduced by 57%. So it had a really immediate impact. But it was quite a sort of short term solution, wasn't it? It got people off the streets for that night, maybe the following night. What else did Andy Burnham try out that looked kind of more long-term solutions. He introduced a housing first trial in the city.

5:52There was a few parts of the country which did this trial. It's a pilot scheme just sort of targeted towards entrenched rough sleepers who had quite complex needs. And it was essentially, you know, instead of sort of putting them into this kind of temporary emergency accommodation, you'd put them straight into a secure, suitable home, you know, a nice warm bed, a secure space, their own space. And it's a model that has been used throughout the world. and alongside a bed every night scheme, it had a really significant impact. It provided 330 tenancies to people with an 82 % retention rate, which is really, really good.

6:24And as I say, obviously, it was a very small scale trial. But I think there's been a lot of scepticism around it as a model. People think, you know, is it fair or is it sort of productive to give a house straight away to these people who often do have complex needs, which does mean that they have been unable to kind of hold down a tenancy previously. But with the right wraparound support and care, I think that's crucial to include here. It's not just about the bricks and mortar, you know, having a place to stay. It is also having the care and the support so that they are able to sustain it in the long term.

7:02embassy village is an example of housing first as the name suggests it means that homeless people are offered a house before they help to tackle their problems whether that's debts mental health issues substance abuse or whatever else andy burnham is a big fan of housing first when he was mayor, Greater Manchester Combined Authority contributed£1.7 million towards Embassy's 6 million build costs and paid for two of the village's support workers. I first met Sid, Embassy's founder, pre-COVID, when he'd bought up Mumford & Sons' old tour bus and was turning it into a mobile homeless shelter. It sounded mad to me, but it worked.

7:42We want them to feel like, wow, I've landed on my feet, I'm going to take this opportunity. And the other thing is we want them to feel valued. So the first guy who ever set foot on our tour bus, which was the first ever thing we did, he burst into tears and said, now I feel valued. Embassy's earlier, smaller projects, based in terraced houses around Manchester, have an excellent success rate. This is like a dress rehearsal, running a home. We're getting people into work. Typically between 90 and 95 % of people leave us with a job and no longer on benefits and go to private rental rather than waiting for council housing.

8:20Even so, when he started talking about building a whole village for rough sleepers, I was sceptical it would ever see the light of day. And well, it did, and now I'm back to see it with my own eyes. Yeah, it does hang on, I'm not going to... Yeah, otherwise it just looks like... While Chris settles in, Sid is showing me around one of the other flats. It's so nice. Oh, it's got that new house smell. Yeah, everything's on. So it's basically a studio flat, isn't it? So the bedroom, there's a single bed that's in the kitchen. Yeah, pretty much. And then there's a bath or a wet room. It's not a bath, actually, it's a shower room.

8:53Yeah. Nice. Sort of student accommodation size and people stay with us on average just over a year. So, you know, no one's getting a mortgage or this or staying here for life. You're not allowed guests. You're not allowed alcohol. You know, people aren't exactly going to be having house parties here. So for one person who's just come off the street, this is going to be a beautiful place to stay for a period of time. We've done this to a really high quality. These are stone worktops and all Bosch kit. Yeah, it's nicer than my kitchen, I have to say. Rent-at-Embassy is covered entirely by each resident's housing benefits.

9:27To stay in the village, they have to sign up for courses to prepare them for life outside. Some of it's compulsory. The compulsory element is the stuff like getting ready for work, learning to budget, learning to cook. But it's tailored to each person because sometimes we've had people who are like a chef, so teaching them to cook could be a bit patronising. So what we've realised over the years is the more fun activities you do, the more people feel human again. Because a lot of their meetings are very stressful. Will you or won't you get this housing? Will you or won't you get to see your kids again?

9:57You know, heavy stuff. but then just to play football or table tennis or you know make pancakes together or watch a film it's like oh it doesn't really matter if I win or lose or you know it's just about being and so that's really important. As a small charity embassy could never have paid for the village themselves. The land came from Peel Group which owns huge swathes of Greater Manchester including Media City and the Trafford Centre. They also own the canal which is good news for Chris He's bought his fishing rod I hear you're a keen fisherman Oh yeah, yeah, I love it What's the biggest fish you've ever caught?

10:34£29 Blimey The village was built with the help of over 100 local businesses Working either for nothing or for zero profit And many of them are also offering jobs and training to the residents And what's the criteria for residents here? Who will be invited to move in? Yeah, good question So we are only taking people who are homeless at the point of application. This isn't open to the general public. It's open to homeless men. So we've actually launched a very, very similar project hidden elsewhere in Greater Manchester last week for women. But it's not on our website. It's not publicised. It's not in the media, even though it's just as great a story.

11:16Because we have to protect our women. Some women who are homeless are fleeing an abuser. The last thing we want to do is go... Embassy is not for everyone. They interview each potential resident to ensure that they're really serious about getting into work and living independently. They don't accept people with drug or alcohol problems either. Because a lot of people, I think, might make the assumption that most people on the streets are drug or alcohol addicts. Yeah, and that is because when you walk down the street and see somebody who is obviously homeless or begging, they may well be, but you'll have walked past 10 other people that you didn't realize are homeless because they look like you and they weren't sat on the street corner they were moving around so i don't think we've how many people have we helped so far it's about 150 people not a single woman was ever begging so it's interesting isn't it and and what i mean i've been volunteering in this sector i wouldn't say i've been an expert this whole time but i've been volunteering since 2004 and what what we've found was there is like some institutionalized people coming out the care system the armed forces prison um and shelters sadly in 2004 when it first started that was most of who was on the street whereas now we find there's about three four hundred percent on top of just your average joes people who just can't quite make ends meet anymore it's to do with financial circumstances and to be fair it's always been the case that about 60 % of homeless people is just due to a relationship breakdown so that doesn't necessarily have anything to do with substance misuse it's just that they're either rough sleeping or sofa surfing or in a shelter so most homelessness is hidden

13:08When Andy Burnham became mayor in 2017 there were 268 people sleeping rough in Greater Manchester Four years later, that dropped to 89. Covid helped a bit, with the government's order to get everyone in off the streets. But now, numbers are creeping back up. Burnham argues it's due to reasons out of his control. The cost of living crisis, rough sleepers coming to Manchester from other cities. But places like Embassy are really helping. A few days after Andy Burnham becomes Prime Minister, I return to Embassy Village. Four months in, it is filling up fast. It's a nice sunny day and residents are milling about.

13:45One young lad is practising capoeira moves underneath one of the arches and there are a few men playing pool in the village hall. One young man, Albert, is having a careers advice session, talking to a financial advisor called Chris, ahead of a job interview that afternoon. The route's into financial advice. We talk about why we're doing stuff. And I can give you loads of stuff. When he's done, he tells me how he ended up at embassy. He's 29 years old, originally from the South. He has a degree, he used to run his own clothing line, and he was even a semi-professional footballer for a bit. But he made what he says were some bad choices.

14:21He ended up with no money and nowhere to stay, and found himself bedded down in a Manchester park. He tried to pretend it wasn't happening. I was watching Netflix and the rain to be on a TV. For the previous two weeks, he'd spent all of his money on Airbnbs as he tried to find work. Things were looking up just as his money ran out. I was homeless for like two weeks while staying out of Airbnbs. But in that time, I had acquired a job to become an accounting executive. So it was like, the day I got the job, like the final past five interviews, was the day I was sleeping in the park. So I was like, this is great.

14:57I've got the best paid job I've ever had in my life. And I'm homeless. He slept just one night rough in February before he was scooped up by the bed every night scheme. And, yeah, in the morning, my laptop died. So I was just sitting there, and then two different people approached me. Two people were walking towards me with, like, badges on, so I knew that they were some kind of, like, government enforcement. I think they were council members. And then two other random people approached me with a big bag of shopping, like, hot chocolates, clothes. So they both came to me at the same time. One was like, oh, help this guy, he's been here all night.

15:31And the other was like, oh, yeah, we're from the council. We got a report that someone was sleeping rough, and long story short, by the end of the day, the council were able to get me in a hostel. It was in the hostel that embassy staff came to see him and told him all about embassy. They met in a Costa coffee and then he got a call back that very same day, asking if he wanted to move in. I was a bit speechless. They didn't try to convince me to be here. I found that weird. I always appreciated the fact they never tried to convince me. And then when I got here, I thought, how are you not trying to convince people to come live here?

16:03But I understand why you wouldn't. because it speaks for itself. Yeah, and they want it to feel like it's a positive choice for you. Yeah, honestly, and like I said, you step into it yourself, and once you understand why people are here and then the environment that they're being provided, you can't not be overwhelmed from the scenery. You get woken up by ducks. It's beautiful. The rooms, the bedrooms. I've paid for rooms smaller than that. 50, like 550 pound a month. Do you know what I mean? And how long do you anticipate living here? In the nicest way possible. Not that long.

16:55I catch up with Sid. We sit on a table by the canal as trams rumble overhead and geese potter about at our feet. it's incredible to see it all in action so of the 41 flats how many guys have you got living here now 23 now by the time you leave 24 and we've got another two guys next week so yeah we're nearly at what was that take it's 26 nearly at 26 yeah we're typically adding one person a week um but it's because the sad truth is we could fill this we could have filled this place in a week really so what we've done is we've paced ourselves and then that helps keep the culture people join a healthy culture the culture becomes the lowest common denominator of behavior so here we've worked really hard to set the culture and it's going really well so we've never had a fight in the history of embassy either and i think it's partly to do with the environment you give people and it's partly to do with people feeling valued so when you move in here we've had a lot of tears when men move in and we've had a lot of people saying wow i didn't think it'd be this good and so now the guys really look after the space typically it's how many people off the street is the sort of going measured but we measure success differently to that you know a success for us is when someone leaves us uh to next accommodation ideally we won't see them in work no longer on benefits and we manage that depending on the cohort between 90 and 95 percent of the time.

18:27Albert has a job interview this afternoon and another man is out for an interview when I arrive. Some of the guys go find their own work which is always like that's the dream because then there's ownership. Some of our guys don't quite have the confidence for that and we have 26 companies partnered with us to employ our men and women. There's three guys now that have been given full-time jobs with Cara Brickwork who helped build the village and they're not unique. One resident has been given a job with the jet washing company that cleans the village. They come down pro bono and jet wash the site once a month.

19:03Because of all these geese. Because the geese are. The men have become very attached to the geese and particularly the small army of goslings that hatched in late spring. Yeah we've got a group of men who really are just a bunch of softies so what's happened is at one point they fell in the canal and couldn't get up the lock so the men all worked together to construct a floating ramp Stop it. Out of wood that they'd found to help the geese. It's just ridiculous. Anyway it was quite nice. Sort of impromptu team building exercise.

19:35Coming up how achievable is Andy Burnham's pledge to end rough sleeping nationwide?

19:58How many rough sleepers are there estimated to be in the UK? So at the last rough sleeping count, which was in autumn 2025, there was 4 ,793 people on the streets. And that was a record high from 2017 was the last record high. And that is overall 160 % increase since 2010. So the numbers have jumped up massively. And this is despite the fact we've had Boris Johnson's conservative government pledged to end rough sleeping, Keir Starmer pledged to half rough sleeping, and now we're back to a pledge to end it. So I think while most people would really welcome Andy Burnham's promise, his bold ambition coming into office, I think there is a certain degree of scepticism about how easy it'll be to do.

20:39It's 3 ,000 people. I think what he described as the most entrenched, rough sleepers you know the people who um are often sort of in and out of of hostels and emergency accommodation it's it's those 3 000 that he's particularly um focusing on we have these kind of um regular rough sleeping counts where essentially people kind of walk around the streets in a certain area and literally count how many people they can see they go to the same place in the same night every year yes yeah um even as a method of counting rough sleepers has its limitations a lot of people are sleeping rough in very hidden places whether that's kind of woodlands or abandoned car parks or abandoned buildings that get completely missed off.

21:14Women historically are massively missed on those counts because they're kind of more at risk of sexual abuse and harassment. So they tend to go in more hidden places. And let's talk about what Andy Burnham's plan entails. Do we know? No. So there's not a lot of detail so far. I mean, he has promised more detail. I think in autumn, he said, we'll find out more. So we know he's pledged an extra£340 million towards this, which will take it to kind of record amount of funding to end rough sleeping in this country, which the homelessness charities that I've spoken to in the past couple of days, obviously really, really welcome this, feel really positive and optimistic about it.

21:53But how exactly he's going to spend that money is still not quite clear. As I said, he says he's going to target 3 ,000 individuals particularly. And he's talked about acquiring housing stock. So he hasn't used the terms housing first, but it sounds like he's going to adopt some kind of housing first approach, which again, people are really pleased to hear. The charities, the experts in this sector really welcomed this pledge, which was a surprise to many people that he was going to announce this on day one. Do they think privately he's lost his mind and he's setting himself up for a fall? No, I don't think so.

22:29I think a lot of homelessness charities do think this is a really achievable goal. I think they feel like they've been almost banging their heads against to wall for the past 10 years because we know how to do this. Things like Housing First have been piloted so many times. We get it. We know what we need to do. It's just actually getting the funding and the political commitment to actually get it done. But I think they think because Andy Burnham's track record in Manchester with what he did there, that he has a real kind of personal drive and commitment. This isn't just another policy for them.

22:59This is something that he genuinely feels really passionate about. He was donating 15 % of his salary towards ending homelessness every month and he's doing the same I think as prime minister with some make-a-feel charities. Yeah exactly so I think they they feel very optimistic and I think they feel that maybe this is the time where it's actually going to be done I mean I literally interviewed someone this morning who said you know if this time next year I'm out of a job that is ideal that's what I want I don't want to be working in this job this time next year and I thought yeah well let's see.

23:33I spot Chris, who's changed a bit since I first met him in March. His mohawk is now red, and he's limping around with a broken leg. The result, he says, of some mishap involving a grassy slope. I ask him what he thinks about Andy Burnham's pledge. I'm sure you've seen that we've got a new Prime Minister, Andy Burnham, the Mayor of Greater Manchester. Do you not want to talk about politics? He's basically... I've met him. Have you? When did you meet Andy Burnham? It was when I was working at Harbury Neighbourhood Centre. So you met him and what was he like? Do I have to say? No. Did you not like him or what?