CITY centre homelessness is at crisis point, coming to a head last week when two men who were rough sleepers died in a fire inside a derelict building in Chinatown.
It is believed that they started the fire themselves to keep warm before it took a hold of the whole building, it took over 50 firefighters to tackle the blaze.
A demonstration and vigil took place outside Manchester Town Hall on Friday the 25th of November by Manchester Activist Network to get the council to tackle the issue, saying on their Facebook page: “How much longer are the council going to go on blaming everybody but themselves?”
Homelessness and rough sleeping is an issue which has affected Manchester for a long time, last year many homeless people set up camp on London Road near the University of Manchester, dubbed Tent City by the M.E.N.
Manchester City Council says that the issue of homelessness is a complex one, and last year they counted 70 rough sleepers in the city, compared to 7 in 2010, but ‘rough sleeping’ is a hard label to gain.
The ‘rough sleeping’ label is hard to gain because the official requirements to be classed as a rough sleeper many people who are homeless in the city aren’t considered to be rough sleeping.
Staying in hostels, temporary accommodation and even walking around at night means that you aren’t a rough sleeper but in fact homeless – which is a major difference.
More than 1,000 people declared themselves as homeless to the council over the last 12 months but only 40 per cent are recognised as homeless because they are not in a desperate need for help.
A huge 24% of the city’s rough sleepers are migrants from Europe who’s dreams of a new life in the UK didn’t work out as they’d imagined. The council however can’t help people who haven’t had an address in Manchester before.
Thanks once more to each and every one of you who supported #TweetForShelter. It was a HUGE success with £100,000 donated by @BritishGas.
— Shelter (@Shelter) November 30, 2016
Last Thursday (24th November) 30 squatters were given permission to remain in a former Pizza Express restaurant on King Street in Manchester. A warrant for the possession of the property was granted by Manchester County Court but an appeal against it has been submitted.
The Office for National Statistics released a study earlier in the year which revealed that Oldham was the most deprived town in England.
Half of the list include town in the North West, such as Rochdale, Birkenhead, Salford and Liverpool, whereas in contrast all the town with the least deprivation are in the south of England such as Guildford, St Albans, Bath, Cheltenham, and Reading.
£360m to renovate Buckingham Palace
£100bn on Trident
£200bn lost on Brexit
11% pay rise for MPs
But no money to help the 40,000 homeless.— James Melville (@JamesMelville) November 24, 2016
Government austerity is a big contributing factor to the homelessness issue. Many see the government cuts as unhelpful and a step backwards, with a huge outcry on social media about the government spending over £55 million on the controversial HS2, and £370 million being spent on ‘urgent’ renovations at Buckingham Palace.
However, on Tuesday (29th November) British Gas helped to raise £100,000 for homeless charity Shelter using the Twitter hashtag #TweetForShelter with the aim of initially raising £25,000, £1 donated for every tweet. But due to the overwhelming support of the public the boundary was raised to £100,000.
Recent Comments