Manchester To Adopt 'Housing First' Scheme To End 'Rough Sleeping'

You may have heard about Pradhan Mantri Awas Yojana, a housing scheme for Indians below the poverty line. In the United Kingdom, there is also a similar scheme in which the government provides homes to poor people. All facilities are being provided for free, including healthcare and education facilities without any cost involved. The main aim of this programme is to provide homes to homeless people and offer better facilities to them.

Greater Manchester’s Mayor, Andy Burnham, is supporting this scheme under the name ‘Housing First’. Andy Burnham has looked to Finland for bold lessons in addressing rough sleeping in the city. Burnham has expressed his commitment to making the region “the first in the UK to adopt a ‘housing first’ philosophy, like Finland.” A scheme launched in Finland in 2008, which provides homes to people when they need them without conditions, has reduced homelessness by 70% and completely eradicated poverty-based homelessness.

Initially, around 400 people will be given homes and the entire cost will be borne by the central government. The first beneficiaries of the scheme were the people suffering from mental health issues and those addicted to drugs.

The mayor mentioned that they had conducted a similar experiment before in which they provided homes to around 413 people. This initiative reportedly helped many homeless individuals by providing proper shelter and other key facilities.

Finland had earlier announced that no one in their country would remain homeless. The main aim of this initiative was to clean up the streets while providing the people with proper facilities. This became so successful that you won’t find any homeless person sleeping on the roads today. Even now, the country’s administration conducts searches for such individuals and takes care of them. This initiative was started in Greater Manchester in 2019.

Lisa, a woman from the city who has been homeless for a long time was among the beneficiaries of the initiative. Talking to the reporters, she mentioned that this scheme had given her a new life.

In 1987, there were more than 18,000 homeless people in Finland. Many of these individuals were seen living with friends or family. However, recent statistics show that now only a few such cases remain after the ‘Housing First’ policy came into force in 2007. The people were first rescued from the streets and taken to the hospital for treatment. After that, they were provided with proper homes to live in.