A man in Salford has shared his experience of being homeless in the city which this week declared the problem a “crisis” – with growing numbers of people struggling to find somewhere to stay. The rise in demand for temporary shelter led the council to set up a ‘welfare hub’ before Christmas, putting down blow-up mattresses and sun loungers in an empty school building to prevent people sleeping on the streets. James, a 47-year-old from the city who has been “on and off” homeless for years, has been staying at the hub for the past four nights and said the number of beds has “doubled” since he arrived. “It’s an overnight shelter for rough sleepers. It’s one step up from sleeping in doorways, that’s basically it”, he told the Local Democracy Reporting Service (LDRS). “It’s okay here, it’s somewhere to sleep, warm, and safe, the staff are friendly, it’s comfortable. But it’s quite lacking in facilities, there’s no washing facilities, no shower, there’s a kitchen area where the staff make us cups of teas, but that’s as basic as it gets. “They’ve doubled the amount of beds they put in here in the last three or four days, I don’t know if they’re all taken but there’s certainly twice the amount here than when I came. “Until you’ve experienced being homeless in winter it’s very difficult to explain it.” His path to homelessness came through drinking too much and falling out with friends and family, he told the LDRS. It’s something he’s battled with for years, but this time he said he knows it’s going to be difficult to get out of. James shared how two weeks ago, during a storm, he was on a park bench and the conditions got so bad that he feared he wouldn’t survive the night. He called an ambulance and ended up in hospital – and there are people going through the same experience every night in Greater Manchester, he claims. He said: “People are going through similar things every night. I was in Manchester a couple of nights ago and people are sleeping in doorways where it’s freezing cold, I told a few of them about this place but a lot won’t come. One guy I know suffers from really bad anxiety and suffers from crowds so can’t be in places like this, he’s basically sat in a doorway freezing.” Salford City Council said that 49 people have used the welfare hub since it was set up on December 20, and 37 of these were from outside the UK and European Economic Area. The Mayor of Salford – Paul Dennett – has blamed the Government’s accelerated asylum scheme for the rise, claiming that people are being made “destitute” by the Home Office which is essentially “evicting” them from their funded accommodation. He told the LDRS: “The Home Office and their accelerated asylum, is causing a rough sleeping crisis here in the city of Salford and making people destitute ultimately. “Kicking them out of their homes, knowing they’re going to the local authority and then knowing that they’re going to be processed under the Homelessness Reduction Act legislation which will deduce that we don’t owe them a legal duty to house them in temporary accommodation. In a sense, evicting them to the street. “The Government already knows the challenges we already have here in Salford and Greater Manchester, with regards to truly affordable housing, the chronic undersupply of that over many years, but importantly, the inability to move people on to alternative accommodation and a place to call home who are stuck in temporary accommodation, Bed Every Night accommodation, and a whole raft of other provision here in Greater Manchester. “At the moment we literally can’t build ourselves out of the crisis and with them dragging their feet on the Renters Reform bill and no fault evictions, with them not actually uprating the local housing allowance at the autumn statement. “All of this is creating the crisis that we have today and it’s just awful, it’s tragic that in one of the wealthiest countries in the world people are living in such Dickensian conditions, it’s scandalous and it should be a stain on this Government.” From August 2023, when the accelerated asylum seeker decision making process started to the end of December 2023, Salford council had 219 households contact the housing service for support who had positive decisions from the Home Office. It said it doesn’t have household breakdown numbers, but the majority were single people to whom the council does not have a legal responsibility to rehouse. Tim Naor Hilton, chief executive of Refugee Action – a national charity – said that homelessness was “the obvious result of ramping-up decision making [for asylum claims] without a housing plan in the middle of a property crisis.” He added: “While underfunded councils struggle to pick up the pieces, asylum accommodation firms make hundreds of millions of pounds in taxpayer-funded profit from appalling living conditions. “Profit must be taken out of the system and councils properly funded to house people, so every penny earmarked for refugee protection can go towards improving services we all use.” Jackie Smith is chief executive of Emmaus Salford – a charity trying to end homelessness. She said the crisis in the city is “deeply concerning” and needs an urgent intervention. She told the LDRS: “The homelessness crisis in Salford is a deeply concerning issue that demands urgent attention and collective action. The challenges faced by those without stable housing are multifaceted, and it’s crucial for communities to come together to support initiatives that provide shelter, resources, and pathways toward long-term solutions. “Every person deserves a safe place to call home, and addressing this crisis requires compassion, cooperation, and sustainable strategies from both government and community organisations.” A government spokesperson said: “We are committed to ensuring asylum claims are correctly decided without unnecessary delays on an individual, objective, and impartial basis and we are working with local authorities to manage the impact of asylum decisions. “Once a newly recognised refugee is issued a biometric residence permit, they get 28 days to move-on from asylum accommodation and are given support and advice through Migrant Help on how to access Universal Credit, employment opportunities and where to get assistance with housing.”
