A shantytown occupied by homeless people in tents has been set up on one of the main gateways into Manchester, the latest encampment to spring up in a city struggling to get to grips with the growing number of rough sleepers.
The camp is located on a patch of grass off London Road, just steps away from Piccadilly, Manchester’s main railway station, and opposite the four-star Macdonald hotel.
The first tents appeared at the end of summer and the camp has now grown to 21 centred around a makeshift gazebo, where people sit in camp chairs sheltering from the persistent autumn rain. A sign propped up against one tent reads: “Trying to get a deposit for a flat. Any donations greatly appreciated. Thank you xxxx.”
The settlement expanded in recent weeks following the high profile eviction of two homeless camps under the Mancunian Way flyover on Oxford Road. Other tents have been pitched outside Boots by the Arndale Centre and underneath a covered walkway off Brazennose Street.
A further group are now living in the former stock exchange, a Grade II-listed Edwardian baroque building on Norton Street owned by former Manchester United footballers Gary Neville and Ryan Giggs. Originally squatted in October by a group of homeless people and activists, Neville surprised them by saying he was happy for them to stay there until February, when renovations are due to begin to turn the building into a luxury hotel.
Yet it is the London Road site that has hit the headlines this week, after the Daily Mail claimed it was known locally as the “Manchester Jungle” – a reference to the encampment in Calais that has become a symbol of Europe’s migration crisis. The two are not really comparable: the Calais camp is now home to more than 6,000 people. Around 15-20 homeless people are actually sleeping in the tents on London Road, according to Mark Noble, a resident who said he moved in a week ago after being evicted from under the Mancunian Way.
This year the council has taken homeless people to court on several occasions to stop them camping at other high profile spots, including outside the Central library, the town hall and St Ann’s Square shopping precinct.
In a blog last month Manchester city council’s leader, Sir Richard Leese, acknowledged that “homelessness is a serious and growing problem not just in Manchester but across the country”. Detailing the challenges the council faces in dealing with the “crisis”, he claimed many of the tents were pitched by activists rather than “real” homeless people: “One thing we do know is that plonking tents in the city centre is not a way of dealing with homelessness, although in reality many of the tent occupiers are not homeless.”
One night each year the council does an audit of rough sleepers. This year they counted 43, up from 10 in 2010. But local charities estimate the real figure is at least 80. In a statement the council said members of its outreach team had visited the London Road site and offered the occupants accommodation, help and support.
“Several people based there have been found accommodation while others have been put in touch with medical and other services, but others based there have refused to engage with our staff,” it said in a statement. But a council spokesman said it could not offer free hostel beds to many of the eastern Europeans camping because of benefit changes last April, that restrict access to housing benefit for EU migrants.
Noble, whose tent is pitched metres away from Piccadilly’s busy railway bridge, said the council had not offered him any help. People were getting increasingly desperate, he said: “There are lads here thinking, ‘I might as well get myself locked up in Strangeways. At least I’ll then have a roof over my head and three meals a day.’ People are going to die on the streets in Manchester this winter unless something is done.”
He said he was eligible for housing benefit but was unable to save up the necessary deposit to get a bedsit or a room in a shared house.
Noble, a 53-year-old grandfather of seven, said he had recently done a three-month stint in HMP Manchester – known locally by its old name of Strangeways – after assaulting someone at a homeless hostel, who he said groped his girlfriend.
He warned how easy it could be to go from a comfortable life to losing everything. “I had it all, mate. Three-bed gaff, three-piece leather suite, plasma [TV], two kids. I was a painter and decorator. Brought £450 home every week. Now I’m here.”
He said there was a certain irony in his camping spot, claiming to have painted some of the rooms in the Macdonald hotel opposite when it was refurbished a number of years ago.
