Salford council has come under fire over claims that it is not doing enough to tackle homelessness.
The leader of Salford Conservatives, Coun Robin Garrido, said the Labour-led town hall needs to take more responsibility on the issue.
It comes as a new report found homelessness cases in the city are rising.
According to the report, there were 1,900 cases of people homeless in Salford in 2021 – up to 3,000 last year.
The city is also facing a housing shortage, with around 5,000 people on the council’s housing register, according to Salford’s deputy city mayor, Coun Jack Youd.
Salford’s Mayor Paul Dennett blamed the previous Conservative government for causing homelessness to increase, through its accelerated asylum scheme.
He said this led to asylum seekers being evicted from funded accommodation and left without anywhere to stay, alongside a “housing crisis” affecting the city.
He has also been critical of government austerity and cuts to the council’s budget, claiming this was to the tune of £245 million under the Conservatives.
Mr Dennett is responsible for homelessness at a Greater Manchester level as part of his role as a member of the Greater Manchester Combined Authority.
But Mr Garrido has said the local council has to do more – and repeated a call to use “empty” council offices as temporary accommodation.
He told the Local Democracy Reporting Service (LDRS):
“This council hasn’t done enough on homelessness, not at all.
“They have made some moves, but we were told by Andy Burnham when he was elected as Mayor the first time that one of his key policies was to get rid of homelessness, and particularly street sleepers.
“One of his top policies was to rid the county of that and he’s failed.
“Paul Dennett is part of that policy, he is essentially one of Andy Burnham’s right-hand men, he has some responsibility there.
“All we did last Christmas was open up an old school and put so many people in there. That’s great and to be congratulated, but that was a very small, quick response, but what we haven’t done is actually looked at the future from there.
“Both Greater Manchester and Salford have had money from the Conservative government for homeless projects.
“If they had put a project like this – using the half-empty council offices to house homeless people – I am convinced they would have gotten additional help over and above what they have received. I think we’ve missed a chance on that.
“In the long-term, there’s a big opportunity to level that building to soak up some of the staff into the civic centre.
“I think they’ve shifted the blame, we need to take more responsibility locally.
“Some areas are particularly good at dealing with that problem, and other parts such as Salford and Greater Manchester have not been particularly good.
“We have to share some responsibility.”
In December, homeless people with tents appeared outside Salford council’s offices at Salford Civic Centre.
In the same month, a former school site in Swinton was re-opened by Salford council and turned into emergency overnight accommodation for rough sleepers with sun loungers and blow-up beds.
Mr Dennett said at the time that homelessness was “rapidly escalating” despite a number of Salford and Greater Manchester-wide schemes to improve the situation – including A Bed Every Night, Salford Assist, Welfare Rights and Debt Advice Service(s), Discretionary Housing Payments, and accommodating people, families and children in temporary accommodation.
A Salford Labour spokesperson defended the council’s record on homelessness.
They said:
“Salford and Greater Manchester have led the way in tackling homelessness in the country.
“Here in Salford, we have built hundreds of high-quality, sustainable homes for social rent through using our wholly-owned development company Derive, and have worked with the private sector to deliver affordable housing such as at the recently opened Greenhaus project.
“On a Greater Manchester level, programmes like Mayor Burnham’s A Bed Every Night programme have been steadily improving the homelessness situation across the region, and we will build on this with the recent announcement of the GM Housing First unit, and the plan to deliver 10,000 council homes over the next 4 years.
“The drivers of homelessness have been almost entirely by the Conservatives at a national level. In the short term, the recent rise in homelessness in GM has been predominantly caused by the Tories accelerated asylum dispersal programme, which has led to asylum seekers being essentially abandoned by the Home Office en masse without local authorities being given the support or resources to deal assist them.
“In the long term, the failure to support councils to build affordable housing, the decimation of council housing stock caused by Right to Buy, the failed promises to ban Section 21/no fault evictions as part of a comprehensive Renters Reform Bill are all markers of a Conservative Party that doesn’t care about renters, doesn’t care about homelessness and has spent 14 years doing as little as possible to tackle the housing crisis whilst piling the problems these failures cause on local government.
“I look forward to working with the new Labour government to deliver more homes, to protect tenants’ rights and to make a genuine attempt to tackle the housing crisis which the Conservatives were never willing or able to do”
The Greater Manchester Mayor’s office was contacted for comment.
