My assignment for today got cancelled, leaving me 100 miles from home in the rain with no purpose. So I had a walk around Manchester city centre, where according to a report in the Manchester Evening News issued by the goverment there are 150 people sleeping rough in the city. But unofficial numbers put this figure at nearly 2,000. Campaigners say benefit sanctions and evictions have led to a rise in rough sleepers across the region.
Here are some of them...
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| Rough sleepers, Piccadily Gardens. |
The two rough sleepers above had only been on this wall in Piccadily Gardens for about 15 minutes, I had been seen them arrive as I watched the TV crew following this Police officer arrive in the Gardens, he promptly moved them on.
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| Sean. |
This is Sean. I saw him on Market Street. He lost his wife twenty years ago. They had a child together but she ended up staying with family as Sean fell apart, devastated by grief. With no support network Sean developed a drug problem trying to escape from the torment in his mind, he didn't recieve any medical help for his psychological problems, slipping through the net. He has been on the streets since last christmas when he was affected by changes to the benefit system which caused him to fall behind with bills and ended up with him being evicted.
"You can't beg!" He told me. "If they catch you begging they will move you on. So I write peoms and people buy them off me." During the fifteen minutes I was with him he sold two poems.
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| "Do not beg. Donation for a poem. A little something for all your help. I am homeless. Thank you Manchester." |
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| John and his dog Rooney. |
This is John and his dog Rooney. They have been homelesss for 15 months. John became homeless after his wife and child died. He suffers from Epilepsy. "I totally lost it when they died. They offered me a hostel but said I couldn't bring Rooney. They said I should put him in a shelter if I couldn't find anyone to look after him. I couldn't do that he is the only family I have got left! He knows if I am going to have an Epileptic fit. In the past when I was going to have one that day he would lay with his head on my lap and not move at all, like he could tell. It's happened a couple of times. They said if I wouldn't leave the dog and go in the hostel then they wouldn't be able to help me, so here I am."
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