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The Guardian - UK
The Guardian - UK
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Andy Burnham

I won’t abandon anyone to sleep rough on our streets. That’s my £442m promise

Homeless woman sits in a doorway near Trafalgar Square, London
‘We’ve lived with it for so long that something that used to shock us now feels like part of the scenery.’ Photograph: Dan Kitwood/Getty Images

I’ve always thought you can tell something about a country by what it learns to walk past. And, somewhere along the way, we’ve got used to seeing people sleeping rough on our streets.

We see people bedded down in doorways and sat outside stations, carrying their lives in rucksacks and with sleeping bags on their backs. And I think most people have the same reaction: this isn’t right; it shouldn’t be happening here. But we’ve lived with it for so long that something that used to shock us now feels like part of the scenery.

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