The shocking number of children who will be homeless in Greater Manchester this Christmas

This Christmas, a ‘shocking’ 16,500 people will be homeless across in Greater Manchester, according to a charity – which says half of them will be children.

The statistics, compiled by Shelter, show one in 20 homeless English children are found in our region. It is believed the data is likely to be an underestimate, suggesting there will be more kids without a home in Greater Manchester than the estimated total of 7,896.

Mayor Andy Burnham believes the roots of the region’s child homelessness problem lies with housing benefit levels. He said during a press conference on Tuesday (10 December): “The freezing of Local Housing Allowance has very detrimental impacts on children in Greater Manchester because of the development of the city, the growth we’ve got, rents are rising here faster than in other parts of the north.

“Therefore, if you freeze local housing allowance, it really hurts. The gap opens up more quickly between the benefit people are getting and the rent they are paying. 

“The only answer is to start building more truly affordable homes, more council homes. Our councils are trying, but we would call on the government in the spending review to really get behind us and try and build council homes at scale across all 10 boroughs.

"That, in the end, is the only answer.”

While all 10 boroughs of Greater Manchester are dealing with homelessness, the problem is acute in the city of Manchester, where Shelter says 4,326 children are homeless and 9,042 people do not have a home.

That means 2.7 per cent of all homeless people in England are found in the city which has just over one percent of the country’s population, the charity estimates.

Initiatives such as Mr Burnham’s ‘A Bed Every Night’ scheme, which gives anyone on the streets somewhere to stay, have helped curb rough sleeping in the region, but it can only keep up with demand. 

The mayor told reporters rough sleeping figures fell from 148 to 112 over the course of 2024.

A Bed Every Night has just received £1m more funding, with £500,000 coming from the government’s ‘winter pressures fund’ and another £500,000 from the mayor’s office, so it can handle 550 users every night, rising to 600 every night in April.

But the mayor believes the extra 50-person capacity has already been filled: “There isn’t extra capacity opening up in Greater Manchester.

“The message is to people – don’t travel to Greater Manchester looking for help because we are fully committed as to what we can do.”

Most of Greater Manchester’s homeless problem is out of sight. Mostly, homeless families face a merry-go-round of ‘cramped and often damaging temporary accommodation’, according to Shelter’s Manchester service lead, John Ryan. 

He added: “Across the north west, extortionate private rents combined with a dire lack of genuinely affordable social homes is trapping more and more people in homelessness.

“Parents are spending sleepless nights worrying about their children growing up in cramped and often damaging temporary accommodation, as weeks and months turn into years without somewhere secure for them to call home.”

Shelter suggests 16 per cent more people in the north west are homeless compared to year ago. Paul Dennett, Salford city mayor, believes much of the increase is down to an ‘accelerated asylum’ process and section 21 ‘no-fault’ evictions.

“I think that’s a reflection of Greater Manchester as a place people want to come to,” Mr Burnham said of Shelter’s data. “Secondly, I think it’s a reflection of the depth of the housing crisis.

“We do need more ability to move people forwards to more appropriate accommodation. It remains a challenge on every level.”

The ‘hidden homelessness’ problem is one that leaders have battled for years. In 2018, Mr Burnham pledged to buy up slum properties to stop them being used to house needy families.

A spokesperson for the government said it is investing £1bn ‘to support homelessness services’. They added: “These figures are shocking and they show the devastating reality of the homelessness crisis which we have inherited.

“No-one should have to spend Christmas without a home and this Government is taking urgent action to get us back on track to ending homelessness, including committing £1 billion in funding to support homelessness services.”

Ethan Davies, Local Democracy Reporter