Rough reality

Andy Burnham pledged ‘to finally end long-term rough sleeping across the UK’. He previously aimed to prevent rough sleeping in Manchester by 2020, and in 2019 the Conservative Party manifesto committed to ending ‘the blight of rough sleeping’. Instead, in 2025 the number of people estimated to sleep rough on a single night in England was the highest recorded, at nearly 4,800.

Rough sleeping is not just about housing. Rough sleepers are among the most marginalised and victimised in capitalist society. Support services, however ‘well-funded’, can only ever offer limited palliatives as they are working within a system that pushes people into homelessness – why previous attempts to end rough sleeping have failed, despite Burnham’s ambition.