Off the streets: how Manchester found homes for hundreds of rough sleepers

Three years ago, Andy Burnham made what seemed to some a fanciful commitment: to find homes for 200 of Greater Manchester’s most entrenched rough sleepers.

Addiction was no bar to a tenancy, nor a criminal record or a history of evictions. Applicants didn’t have to get clean first: once they got the keys they would be monitored closely and offered “wrap-around” support to get their lives on track. It was a big deal given the intense competition for social housing – at the time, Manchester alone had a waiting list of 12,900.

Despite the early scepticism, the GM Homes Partnership has gone on to be one of the UK’s most successful homelessness projects, with 356 long-term rough sleepers given a roof over their head.

Three years on, 281 (79%) of those are still accommodated, 45 have started employment or training, 133 have received help for their mental health and 97 have accessed drug or alcohol services.

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Phil Baraclough was one of the first people to be housed. The Guardian first met him in the summer of 2018, when he had moved into what he grumbled was a “grotty” first floor flat in Hulme, just outside Manchester city centre. It was his first permanent address since his girlfriend died eight and a half years earlier, triggering a downward spiral that led to him sleeping outside Manchester’s new Co-op building most nights.

He was not in a brilliant way. His breathing was laboured, an after-effect of a bout of TB that had left him with one lung. He was quite clearly drinking heavily and had violated the terms of his tenancy before he spent even one night in his new bed, giving his keys to a friend from the streets while he went into residential rehab.

He agreed to talk as long as we didn’t identify him. He was not long out of prison and didn’t want his family, back in West Yorkshire, to realise what had become of him.

Two years later, Baraclough has no qualms about being named and photographed. Now 60, he has moved house since our first meeting and is now in a one-bed ground floor flat in a different part of the city. There’s a Lowry print on the wall, along with a certificate for a course he has completed in home decoration. Although he can’t put the heating on until he tops up his meter, he seems content, talking constantly about his new girlfriend. He only drinks on special occasions these days and is unsentimental about the future, saying he will just enjoy the years he has left, and then can be disposed of as cheaply as possible. “Chuck me on the council tip for all I care.”

For him to maintain a tenancy is a major success: he first went to prison as a teenager and has lost track of how many times he returned to jail over the subsequent decades – or the tattoos he has accumulated all over this body (he rolls up his trouser leg to reveal one reading “I love you Amanda” with the remark: “I’ve no fucking idea who Amanda was.”)

Phil Baraclough in his one-bedroom ground floor flat in Manchester. H says he will now be able to enjoy the years he has left. Photograph: Christopher Thomond/The Guardian

Of the 356 people housed, seven (2%) have gone to prison, three have returned to the streets and eight have gone awol, according to Sam Perrett, the project manager for the GM Homes Partnership. He describes it as “an amazing outcome which has far exceeded expectations”.

Unsurprisingly, given the vulnerable and often chaotic cohort involved, there have been difficult times. “The main issue has been ‘cuckooing’, when someone moves into a new home, gets settled and then word gets around their old acquaintances that they have got a tenancy, and, because people are vulnerable, others take over those tenancies. We have had a lot of cases where that has happened and there has been complaints from neighbours about antisocial behaviour and criminal behaviour,” said Perrett. In those cases, as with Baraclough, people have been given “managed moves” instead of being evicted.

There was scepticism among social housing providers that the scheme would work, admits Perrett – even though they had all signed up to provide flats for the participants: “There was a worry about overriding allocation policies and accommodating people who have had rent arrears or issues with antisocial behaviour in the past, particularly when resources are so stretched.”

Andy Burnham, the mayor of Greater Manchester: ‘Many people now have safe and warm homes, as well as the support they need.’ Photograph: Christopher Thomond/The Guardian

The project was funded by a social impact bond (Sib), where social investors pay for the project at the start, and then receive payments from the government based on the results: £500 for every participant who moved into a home, with £1,500 bonuses for sustaining the tenancy for three, six and then 18 months, and more for completing rehab or training and getting a job. The returns were capped at £2.6m, meaning a small payout for the investors, who come from the local voluntary, community and social enterprise sector.

Andrew Levitt, a partner in social sector funds at Bridges Fund Management, who managed the financial side of the project, admitted he was expecting at least half of the tenancies to fail, describing the project as “one of the shining stars of our portfolio. Of the 50 contracts we have supported around the UK since 2012, the GM Homes Partnership has been one of the very best performing in terms of impact, and real social innovation.”

Though the project came to an end at the close of the year, the housing associations involved will continue to monitor participants, some of whom will always need more help than traditional tenants.

Burnham, who was elected on a pledge to eradicate rough sleeping in 2017, is delighted: “The Sib, alongside other schemes we have commissioned at the Greater Manchester combined authority, has helped turn lives around and has had a truly positive impact on the numbers of people who are sleeping rough. Many people now have safe and warm homes, as well as the support they need, and thanks to the Sib can look to a positive future.”