Burnham launches ‘national drive’ to get rough sleepers off streets by Christmas

Prime minister urges local leaders to act as homelessness campaigners welcome move but say more needs to be done

I won’t abandon anyone to sleep rough on our streets. That’s my £442m promise

Andy Burnham has urged local leaders to offer all rough sleepers in England a route off the streets by Christmas, as he pledges another £100m to end street homelessness.

Arguing in the Guardian that rough sleeping has become so common it now “feels like part of the scenery”, Burnham promised he would mount a Covid-style campaign to get everyone off the streets this winter.

The announcement solidifies tackling homelessness as a central policy for Burnham’s government, and gives voters a measure by which to judge his success – although without a concrete target for ministers to hit.

Homelessness campaigners welcomed the move, but warned more will need to be done to tackle the longer-term temporary accommodation crisis, which has given the UK the worst homelessness problem in the western world.

In his article for the Guardian, the prime minister writes: “We see people bedded down in doorways and sat outside stations, carrying their lives in rucksacks and sleeping bags on their backs. And I think most people have the same reaction: this isn’t right.

“It shouldn’t be happening here. But we’ve lived with it for so long that something that used to shock us now feels like part of the scenery.”

He adds: “We did it in the pandemic. We got people out of the cold because, as a country, we decided it had to be done. We can do it again.

“That’s why the first thing I announced when I became prime minister was a commitment to end rough sleeping. Not to manage it, not to reduce it – but to end it. And today, we’re taking the first step in getting it done.

“We’re putting £442m behind a national drive to get everyone in for Christmas.”

Burnham announced his drive to end rough sleeping outside No 10 immediately after becoming prime minister, pledging £340m over the next three years to provide more accommodation for rough sleepers.

Officials say that money will pay for 1,200 new homes and help support 3,000 people over five years.

On Wednesday, he will tell local leaders they must offer a route off the streets to anyone who wants one by Christmas, announcing an additional £102m for additional services such as medical care and addiction support to help them do so.

Of that, £8.4m will go to charities and other community organisations as part of the Ending Homelessness in Communities Fund .

Burnham said he would not instruct local authorities and mayors how to use the money, saying they would know best which services were most needed in their areas.

Officials said the prime minister was not considering changing the law to force local authorities to provide accommodation for any rough sleeper who asked for it. At the moment they are only required to do so for people deemed a “priority need”, such as families with children.

Burnham’s aides acknowledge that some people are likely to still be on the streets at Christmas, given authorities cannot force people into accommodation if they do not want it.

But the prime minister is not setting a target for how much rough sleeping will have fallen by Christmas, with officials saying only that “real progress” should have been made.

Burnham is not the first prime minister to make such a pledge. Boris Johnson also promised to end rough sleeping, while Keir Starmer said he would cut it in half during his time in office.

The numbers fell sharply during the Covid pandemic as the government mobilised student accommodation, B&Bs and holiday rentals to provide a bed to anyone who wanted one under the “Everyone In” scheme.

They have risen again since the funding for that scheme was withdrawn, however, and a record 4,793 people were found to be sleeping rough in England as of the government’s last snapshot in autumn 2025.

Burnham himself promised to end rough sleeping as mayor of Greater Manchester. He had some success with his plans, largely by forcing greater collaboration between different organisations.

For example, he made the 10 councils under his jurisdiction share data so that someone who was rough sleeping in one area could be tracked if they travelled to another during the day. He also made sure landlords did not evict tenants because of relatively minor misdemeanours, which experts say is a major cause of street homelessness.

After several years of falling numbers, however, the level of street homelessness in the city region has risen again in each of the last four years.

Homelessness campaigners welcomed the prime minister’s announcement on Tuesday night, though said that more long-term solutions would have to be put in place to deal with the country’s far bigger temporary accommodation problem.

Sarah Elliott, the chief executive of the charity Shelter, said: “The prime minister’s pledge to get everyone sleeping rough off the streets by Christmas is a game-changing move and exactly the kind of bold leadership needed to end the housing emergency.

But she added: “Tackling the most visible form of homelessness is a strong start, but the almost 178,000 children hidden away in grim temporary accommodation also need somewhere to call home. The prime minister must apply the same unwavering ambition to delivering the council housing revolution he promised.”

John Bird, the crossbench peer and co-founder of the Big Issue, said: “Covid proved that when we decide rough sleeping is unacceptable, we can act and get people in off the streets. This Christmas commitment is a welcome return to that spirit.”