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Responding to today’s speech, Matt Downie, Chief Executive at Crisis, said: “It is absolutely fantastic to see that, just minutes into his new job as Prime Minister, Andy Burnham is prioritising tackling homelessness – committing to end rough sleeping across the country as his ‘first instruction’ to his new government.
“Rough sleeping is a moral stain on our country; a normalised emergency born out of years of chronic underinvestment in support services and a failure to build new social homes at anywhere close to the scale required.
“Andy Burnham now has the potential to rewrite the norms on tackling homelessness and end rough sleeping once and for all. He has announced today the first steps in a five-year plan to provide secure homes and support for thousands of people facing the most severe and long-term forms of homelessness. This is a significant shift away from a series of expensive temporary fixes and towards a Housing First approach to homelessness.
“With new investment, this announcement shows the new Prime Minister is committing to a strategy that works; based on sound, evidence-based policy that tackles homelessness at its root. This is a hugely positive signal that we are moving away from simply managing homelessness, which costs billions to the public purse, to ending it with housing and tailored support for people that need it most. We stand ready to help the practical delivery of this new agenda.”
-Ends-
Notes to Editor
About Crisis
Crisis is the national charity for people facing homelessness across Wales, Scotland and England. We know that homelessness is not inevitable, and we know that together, we can end it.
We provide services directly to people experiencing homelessness, carry out research into the causes and consequences of homelessness, and campaign for the changes needed to end it.
You can contact the Crisis media team on 020 7426 3880, media@crisis.org.uk, or 07973 372587 (out of hours).
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