Glasgow is the 16th city to sign a pledge to the European Pillar of Social Rights. The pledge was signed by the City Council with a strong commitment from Deputy Leader Councillor David McDonald to principle 19 on housing and assistance for the homeless.

Glasgow is committed to invest £23 million in 2019-2024 to tackle rough sleeping and homelessness with the goal of ending homelessness in the next 7-10 years. To this end, Glasgow pledges to:

• re-design and deliver modernised services and support to prevent and combat homelessness 
• work in partnership with providers, in the framework of the UK's first Alliance to End Homelessness, to reduce the amount of time spent in homelessness and increase access to mainstream tenancies with adequate support 
• final aim is to reduce by 75% the number of people sleeping rough every week in the city centre and cut by 50% the number of people sleeping rough city-wide every year

Glasgow is also committed to invest over £557 million in 2019-2024 to ensure access to affordable housing for all. To achieve this, Glasgow pledges to:

• provide 8,500 new affordable homes by 2024 in line with its Strategic Housing Investment Plan
• promote regeneration and community empowerment in neighbourhoods where inequalities are highest in view of improving health and well-being
• improve access to housing across all tenures
• raise management standards in the private rental sector
• tackle energy poverty and energy efficiency

Glasgow's Deputy Leader Cllr David McDonald said: “Glasgow is a proud European city and committed to the values of the European Pillar of Social Rights. We believe an inclusive city is an open society that addresses the needs of all its residents. We are committed to develop resilient and empowered neighbourhoods to achieve social rights for all in our city and ensure we are an Inclusive City for All".

Read the full pledge below. 

Glasgow follows 6 other cities that signed pledges to improve housing and tackle homelessness: Ljubljana, Barcelona, Timisoara, Nantes, Leipzig and Ghent.

This is part of the EUROCITIES initiative ‘Inclusive cities for all: Social Rights in my city’. This initiative aims to build political momentum to get mayors and deputy mayors to implement the principles of the European Pillar of Social Rights at local level. We will officially launch this campaign during a political event at the European Parliament on 21 February 2019.

EUROCITIES will continue this campaign throughout 2019 as part of its strategic partnership with the European Commission under the Employment and Social Innovation programme. We aim to gather pledges from many more city leaders to show how cities can act to translate the principles of the European Pillar of Social Rights into concrete actions on the ground to improve people's lives.

Glasgow_pledge

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