Here are a few more perspectives from some of the street homeless people I’ve been speaking to in Manchester. I wander around from time to time and sit down with people for a while. We shoot the breeze about this and that.
You’ll note that both of the people in this article mention concerns about the police moving people on if they were found begging that day. The first guy, Chris*, said he’d heard that people were being sent back to their home towns and the second guy, Dave*, talked about fines for begging. There was certainly a ripple of concern going around that day. That’s the sort of thing I’m writing about here: concerns and uncertainties. On a given day, concerns travel. People say the same things.
The Manchester police said that the “GMP does not fine or return those found begging to their home towns,” and that “only where begging is accompanied by anti-social or criminal behaviour then we may issue a Dispersal Notice.”
So. People I spoke to around Manchester on a Thursday night had other views:
Sitting outside the NCP carpark on Blackfriars Street was Chris, 33. We chatted for a while. He was concerned about the coppers. He said that he’d heard they were out and about moving people on if they had cups out for coins.
We also talked about signing on for jobseekers’ allowance. He said – as a lot of people on the streets do when this subject is raised – that people had problems if they tried to sign on and to stay signed on without a stable address. It seems that people can use a Care Of address to sign on, but not everyone finds that easy to manage. People find keeping up with the DWP’s jobsearch demands and endless letters extremely difficult – which is hardly surprising. Benefit sanctions are never far away when you miss letters and meetings. As Dave says below, it can be hard to make yourself available for work when you’re homeless.
Chris said that he didn’t know what was happening with his JSA claim.
He was from Crewe:
“People who come here from all over the country as well like from different cities… they just end up here and there’s nowhere to go.
Well – the police and that have been going around today… and if they ain’t from around here, they’ve been telling them… sending them back where they are from…? I don’t know, but that’s what I’ve been told today…by…
[They come round] before Christmas, yeah…[to clear the streets for Christmas shoppers].
We talk about signing on for JSA.
You haven’t got an address you can’t….[sign on] yeah…
Did they tell you at the jobcentre?
Yeah…No, some people have got Care Of addresses, like, but they are only getting half the giro as well… I don’t know what is going on with mine, so. Don’t know what [it’s like] round here, like, but I know in…
[This] country needs sorting out…it needs knocking down and starting again.
I’m from Crewe. My girlfriend is up here. She is living at her parents’ at the moment. I’ve got a boy. He is [a baby].
Do you get to see him at all?
Yeah .
[I’m looking for a B&B tonight] Hopefully. I need £16.
Dave, 40, was sitting along from Victoria station.
I asked him about people being moved on if they were seen begging.
We also talked about signing on for unemployment benefits. He said that people could collect JSA if they gave a Care Of address. He said the jobcentre wouldn’t let him sign on right now, because he’d got a few grand when his gran died a while back. He said that money had been lost and there was no help for it now (you tend to find that the average punter is cut less slack on the issue of any sort of inheritance than, say, the Duke of Westminster):
“[The police today], they was stopping us from sitting down and begging… Where people are sitting down, they give them… [sic]. If you get seen again, you’ll get a fine – but what’s the point of getting a fine when you’re homeless, when you can’t even afford to get a roof? A fine for begging – what else are you supposed to do? Go into a shop and steal?
I know begging has always been illegal, for the last several hundred years. [They] tell you to move. You got to sit somewhere else. You might get away with it the second time, but if you got caught the third time… but the second time, you taking the mickey.
Basically, some of them [the police] can’t be bothered with the paperwork, if you know what I mean. They keep seeing you. That’s what they are doing today. That’s what they were doing…
They might put you in contact with someone [for accommodation], but the waiting list…people think that you can get accommodation just like that [he clicks his fingers], but you can’t. It’s really, really hard. I’ve tried at the council. I’m not a priority… single men haven’t got priority. I go into the library, bidding [for council properties that are available to people who are on the housing register].
I’m waiting for the hostel.
Two hostels, I’m waiting for them. There are waiting lists for the hostels. There are 20 to 30 people on the waiting list… but saying that it could be next week [that I get a room]. Just because there are 20 or 30 people before me – it might come to me. Some of them might go somewhere else and some of them might not want it [a hostel room] but then again…I hate the … it’s not going to be sunny forever.
[I am likely to go to a B&B tonight] If I get the money. If I get the money… about three times a week if I don’t, I sleep outside, I won’t. I’ll make the money for one night and if I can make enough money for a couple of nights, then I don’t have to do it [begging for a day or two]. I get me food, that’s it, and where I go to [the hotel] by Piccadilly Station, it’s £16 a night.
A lot of people at these places want picture ID [though]… passport, licence. If you haven’t got it, you can’t get in.
How can you get a picture ID if you can’t get an address?
Well, yeah. Say if you got a library card picture with your name on, you’ll be ok, but picture ID – it’s stupid. You’re only there for one night, but it’s getting hotels… some people… if you go into a hotel, it’s like £89 a night…
People say that they are having trouble signing on
Yeah, because they haven’t got an address to actually sign on. ..You can sign on, you know what I mean – you’ve got to have an address, or a correspondence address. There’s a place called the Booth Centre [the Booth Centre supports people who are street homeless], so there are a couple of places that you can use [for a Care Of address]. But – I’m not entitled to benefits. My gran passed away a year ago, right. Took a few months, but she left us an inheritance each. [I] been with my girl for ten years. I thought I could trust her. For five months, she didn’t pay my rent. She didn’t pay the council tax. She didn’t pay the bills… and six and a half months and it was all gone.
Lost me job, lost me home. That’s why I’m in this situation now, but when I went about the money for the benefits, I told them. I have to wait four to six months and then I’ll be on a review after that. Will have to see, because even though I went to the police over the matter, they’re thinking that I’ve put it [the money] somewhere else. So that’s why I’m not entitled to benefits and because if I can’t get benefits, I can’t get accommodation, because the benefits are…pay for my rent…can’t get housing benefit at the moment.
[With] begging, I [sometimes] make enough to get food, accommodation, underwear, t-shirts.
Some of these homeless people are really dirty. There’s no need for that. [You] go to the Booth Centre – you can get a shower, cut your hair, get a meal. You don’t need to be… I might be homeless, fine, but I’m clean. Cut my hair. Just don’t know these days… just don’t know what….
They [people who are street homeless] can sign on. They can have a Care Of address to anywhere – but it’s the jobseekers’ allowance, having to come in every day [attend the jobcentre to prove you are available for work that is difficult].
You can’t work if you’re homeless – if you don’t know where you’re going to be every day. I don’t sleep when I’m out here. The odd time, when I am so knackered, I do. I just pass out for seven or eight hours, but other than that, get about two or three hours a night. That is why I get a B&B if I can… have a shower, catch up on the soaps…
Some of these [homeless people] won’t even [take accommodation] though. Some of them might get – “Oh, we’ve got accommodation there for you.” [They say] No, I don’t want it. I know a mate – he’s been homeless for many, many years. He got a flat. He couldn’t sleep in it. He slept outside, because he was free. He couldn’t sleep [inside]…. it was hard for him and he gradually build his way up to it… Some people… when it’s cold…. I’ve been homeless before a couple of times. You meet the wrong guy, or [you’ve] messed up yourself …
How people perceive me
They [sometimes] say can you spare some change please… like, get a job – but it’s not as easy as that, you know. [They say] “I bet you got more money than me.”
People say “you’ve got better clothes on than me.” [But I can tell you why that is]. You know where Strangeways prison is… along that stretch [there are people selling knockoff clothes there]. These [shoes] cost £25. They are worth £350 [sic]. Tracksuit cost £5. I got that down there, but because I am wearing this, I’ve got these clothes on and they’re better than their clothes, so I get a bit of stick for it sometimes.
I’m from Darwen. I came here, because I was working and then lost my job and become homeless for six months. Met this girl, then got myself a job and then got laid off for that. Then, the relationship was a bit up and down and then [we] broke up… been and up and down spiral for the last few years…
[I’ve been doing this for] about three or four months now… over summer [it is] not too bad. Like, I’ve been out over Christmas.
*names changed from the ones given
A lot more people are going to find themselves on the street like this in the future, through benefit sanctions and delays in payments.
Where else is there to go when people have no money, and society doesn’t care ? I saw a young woman the other day sleeping in a railway arch near a busy junction. She was completely surrounded by rubbish that had been piled into the archway, and had cleared herself a space in the middle of it to lie down. It was just as if no-one cared if she slept in the rubbish or died in it. Absolutely disgraceful.
I find it odd. That’s one reason I like to collect interviews, as a sort of record. Here or in London or wherever – it’s sort of accepted in a general sense. Street homeless people are just part of the city scene or something. I suppose the general view is that people have somehow brought it all on themselves. I always think – what does that even mean and so what if they have. People in my family, including myself, have seriously fucked up along the way, or broken down or what have you. The difference is that there’s always been enough money or housing or whatever to keep the relevant individuals off the side of the road.
I have recently been asked to leave my parents home due to being gang stalked and my parents just won’t believe it. I am an M.E. sufferer which is a debilitating illness, the council have told me that if a property can’t be found before my eviction date then I will become homeless unless I am classed as a vulnerable person. I told the interviewer that I am more vulnerable than the ordinary man due to my severe illness, which is classified as serious as M.S. She told me that unless the doctor testifies to this I will be street homeless. I know for a fact that this will not happen as my doctor is a gang member, and it is the gangs who are trying to make me homeless and will succeed very shortly. This country is a disgrace! How do gang members get into such positions of power and have the ability to take everything off you and reduce you to homelessness. Why is it that people just don’t seem to care about gang members or others. Where did the care and compassion go in life. How is it that gang members who exist through all echelons in life get away with this in secret. I know most people reading this will automatically assume that I am either making this up or have a mental illness; this is not the case, and ever word I have written is the truth. Wish me luck guys in a world that has become devoid of compassion and love. May God have no mercy on these people.