Description

     Of those, 4,329 are living in temporary accommodation and 189 are rough sleepers.

In  May 2017, Greater Manchester (GM) elected its first ever city-regional Mayor, Andy Burnham. His first formal act on his first day in office was to launch the GM Mayor’s Homelessness Fund in support of frontline efforts to tackle homelessness, and toward his pledge to end rough-sleeping in the GM city-region by 2020.The Mayor donates 15% of his salary to the fund.

The Mayor is closely supported by Councillor Beth Knowles and Ivan Lewis MP, his appointed co-Leads for Rough Sleeping and Homelessness, working alongside the GM Homelessness Action Network, a broad spectrum of passionate and dedicated GM stakeholders, charities, civic groups and social enterprises, and the citizens of Greater Manchester, including our citizens with current and previous lived experience of homelessness.

Building on our collective work to date, the theme for this challenge is ‘Homelessness: Breaking the Cycle’. The GM Mayor’s Office invites ideas, innovations and best-practice exchange in response to this broad theme, both in support of our shared mission to end rough sleeping in GM by 2020, and in contribution to a co-developed 10-year homelessness reduction and prevention strategy for GM (to be scoped from January 2018). It is essential that responses are co-designed with people with lived experience of homelessness. Specifically, we invite responses which speak to the one or more of the three pillars of our approach:

·        Respite - to take people off the street into a safe place

·      Recovery - to manage issues, to stabilize individuals and to work towards reconnection through support and upskilling

·        Reconnection – to enable individuals to lead re-connected lives in their communities

GM is the first city-region in the world to formally embed the arts into its Homelessness Strategy, and responses which resonate with that pioneering strategic alignment are particularly welcome.

Target Community

Greater Manchester is in the North West of England. It is the third-largest metropolitan city-region in the UK, with 2.73 million people living across its ten boroughs. GM’s economy generates £56 billion in GVA per year. At the same time, 187 neighbourhoods in GM are within the 5% most deprived in England, and over a quarter of all children in GM (dependents under the age of 20) are living in poverty.

One of GM’s most pressing social challenges is rapidly rising levels of homelessness. In Manchester, rough sleeping has risen over 33% in the past year and use of temporary accommodation has risen 100% in the same time (and in some GM boroughs by 800% since 2010). Since its founding in May 2017, the GM Mayor’s Office has worked closely with homelessness stakeholders across GM, including people with lived experience – not as a ‘targeted community’, but as equally valued collaborators in policy and service co-design.

Challenge Owner

The three pillars of GM’s strategic approach to homelessness reduction and prevention (Respite, Recovery and Reconnection) form the three specific sub-themes of the challenge. The arts are embedded as a key theme within our strategic approach, a globally unique alignment which is reflected in the challenge. The challenge also strongly supports the Mayor’s vision to end rough sleeping in GM by 2020, building on work already undertaken with the GM Homelessness Action Network, and through the Mayor’s Homelessness Fund.

Cllr Beth Knowles, Lead for Rough Sleeping and Homelessness will act as “champion” for this challenge within the Mayor’s Office. A long-term campaigner and activist in tackling homelessness, and a strong champion and advocate for people with lived experience, she has been pivotal in establishing Manchester’s pioneering Homelessness Partnership and in the co-creation of its Homelessness Charter. She is Chair of ‘With One Voice’, a global practice and policy-sharing partnership focussed on homelessness and the arts.

Innovative Solutions

The Mayor has pledged to end rough sleeping in GM by 2020.Despite the fantastic work already going on across GM, the scale of the challenge, the strength of imperative, and the continued rise of homelessness levels mean that we are seeking out ideas, innovation and practice-exchange to expedite progress and to augment our collective efforts.

We have tested and are committed to co-design and collaboration. Solutions might therefore seek to support this, perhaps utilising tech/virtual/digital platforms. We are interested in solutions which promote pro-active citizenship; including all of our citizens. We welcome a broad range of solutions including capital/build, product and data/research, and especially those which embed the arts in their design (and culture, heritage, identity and place).

Support for solutions 

The opportunity to work with social entrepreneurs and innovators through the platform comes at a particularly pertinent time for GM, following the election of our first ever GM Mayor in May 2017, and the launch of the GM Homelessness Fund and the GM Homelessness Action Network. As a result, GM as a city-region can offer a clear and coherent political, strategic and policymaking governance and partnership framework as a robust context in which SPs can explore and develop their work.

The political prioritisation of the homelessness agenda, and the prior development of these mature and effective GM stakeholder networks means that there is a wide range of high quality information, data and expertise available. The GM Mayor’s Office will bring the full strength of its convening power to ensure SPs are wholly supported in developing a good understanding of this complex and multi-faceted issue, and will further support SPs in knowledge and best-practice exchange with GM-based SPs (encouraging reciprocal relationships). We are keen to explore innovative, and longer-term solutions with SPs through the GM Mayor’s Homelessness Fund, and to identify opportunities for shared promotion.

The GM Mayor’s Office is working in close collaboration with the Impact Hub team in Manchester in developing and delivering this challenge. Impact Hub will lead in delivering mentoring, coaching, development, investment and scaling support for SPs, and in facilitating continued cooperation beyond the grant.