ANDY IS NOW PLEDGING TO PUT ‘A BED EVERY NIGHT’ ON A PERMANENT FOOTING – AND TO KEEP DONATING 15% OF HIS SALARY TO SUPPORT IT
- Next week, Andy will ask Greater Manchester Combined Authority to endorse, for the first time, a full annual budget for A Bed Every Night (ABEN).
- For the last four years, Andy has donated 15% of his salary to support homelessness projects. If re-elected Andy will continue to do this every month.
- ABEN helps around 520 every night every night in Greater Manchester.
- Levels of rough sleeping have massively reduced in Greater Manchester since 2017.
Andy Burnham has vowed to keep working to end rough sleeping rough in Greater Manchester following the huge reduction achieved in his first term.
Andy is today pledging to continue to donate 15 per cent of his monthly salary, if he’s re-elected for a second term. He’s also calling for the city region’s ground-breaking A Bed Every Night scheme to be on a permanent footing.
Since Andy was elected as Mayor of Greater Manchester the number of rough sleepers has reduced from a peak of nearly 300 to just over 70 at the latest count. An independent analysis has found that the reductions in Greater Manchester occurred mainly pre-pandemic whilst the national reductions are primarily the result of ‘Everyone In’.
Next week, Andy will ask Greater Manchester Combined Authority to endorse, for the first time, a full annual budget for A Bed Every Night (ABEN). Andy will commit to making A Bed Every Night a permanent part of Greater Manchester’s response to tackling rough sleeping.
Greater Manchester’s ABEN helps around 520 every night across the city region. It seeks to prevent and reduce levels of rough sleeping, address the wider support needs of those accessing the programme, and enable move-on to more suitable accommodation.
The Mayor of Greater Manchester, Andy Burnham, 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 4 years.
“Working together we can end rough sleeping. If I am re-elected in May I will make A Bed Every Night a permanent part of our response to rough sleeping. It 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 operated without national funding, via Greater Manchester led investment and scaling-up of emergency accommodation and support. This has included the Mayor of Greater Manchester donating 15 per cent of his salary.
There have also been various fundraising events such as Raise The Roof, a special concert that raised more than £100,000 to help tackle rough sleeping in the city-region.
Editors’ Notes:
For further information email the campaign team at contact@andyformayor.co.uk
What is A Bed Every Night?
Nobody should have to sleep rough on the streets of Greater Manchester. A Bed Every night provides a bed, warm welcome, and personal support for anyone who is sleeping rough or at imminent risk of sleeping rough in Greater Manchester.
This is Greater Manchester – we live by a different set of values. We don’t walk on by.
With politicians, sports stars, charities, businesses, the public and private sector, faith and community groups and the public all coming together, a crisis which has escalated in this age of austerity can be tackled and, eventually, removed from our social landscape once and for all.
A Bed Every Night is part of an integrated system and is one of a number of options available to people experiencing or at risk of rough sleeping here in Greater Manchester.
For further information see www.bedeverynight.co.uk
