After a man was found dead in Manchester city centre on Boxing Day, rough sleepers explain why some still remain outside despite emergency cold weather shelters being made available. Chris Slater reports.
People in sleeping bags outside Manchester town hall on Saturday morning(Image: Ryan Jenkinson/Manchester Evening News)
“I thought ‘why doesn’t it happen to me? Why do I have to sleep on this cold floor?’” A rough sleeper sits with his legs in a sleeping bag, and two hands clasped around a steaming hot cup of tea a passer-by had just handed him.
Just over a week ago, the streets of Manchester city centre were hit by tragedy. Early on Boxing Day morning (Friday, December 26), the body of 47 year-old Anthony Horn was discovered on a walkway near the Bridgewater Hall.
He was sleeping rough at the time and the Manchester Evening News has reported it is believed he may have died on the street from the cold. Just under a mile away, outside the Sainsbury’s store on Mosley Street, on Saturday morning (January 3), sits a 47 year-old man who says he has been homeless on and off since leaving the care system as a teenager.
He says Mr Horn was ‘the only friend I had’ and that the pair used to sleep in a car park together. And as the temperatures plummeted below zero overnight, he says his death and the bitterly cold conditions had caused him to become morbidly reflective.
“He has a family, I don’t,” the man says. “He is missed, I wouldn’t be. So I kept thinking, why didn’t they take me?” The man says for several years he has been sleeping on the pavement in a nearby back street. He says he spent last night simply in a sleeping bag on a piece of cardboard and a blanket, with a fleece and two layers to keep him warm.
Where one man the M.E.N spoke to says he slept on Friday night, and where he claims he has done for several years now(Image: Manchester Evening News)
Temperatures reached minus two degrees Celsius on Friday night. And the mercury remained below freezing until the sun was up and it had passed 9am on Saturday morning.
The man, who the M.E.N is choosing not to name, says: “I couldn’t feel my feet. I hardly slept at all, it’s just too cold. If I had benefits, I wouldn’t have to do this.”
Each year when the weather is forecast to dip below zero, even for one day, Manchester City Council implements its severe weather emergency protocol. The town hall says that they increase their outreach work with staff out every day until 4:30am trying to understand who is sleeping rough, and offering them warm spaces to come inside.
Experts say they are a number of different reasons why people may choose to decline these offers and remain outdoors.
The man claims he wasn’t personally offered the option of going indoors last night, but that he knew of several other people also sleeping rough who were. “Where they take you, you have to sit-up, you’re not allowed to lie down”, he said. “What’s the point in going there? Sometimes they pick you up at 4am, and kick you at 7am.”
The council says there are different accommodation options. including some with beds, with different opening times, but that sometimes when there’s ‘particularly high demand’, ‘sit-up’ options are offered as a means of getting people out of the cold.
The tents in Lincoln Square(Image: Manchester Evening News)
Asked if he feared sleeping out in the conditions, which experts say are ‘life-threatening’, the rough sleeper says: “I did at one stage, but now I’m just used to it. If it happens, it happens. When your time’s up, your time’s up. I just take the risk.”
Not far from the town hall, near Lincoln Square, stands a 48 year-old man shivering uncontrollably after stepping out of his sleeping bag. He begins to cough so hard he almost vomits. “It’s hellish,” he says of the conditions. “It’s not good at all.”
“It’s far too cold. As soon as I get out of my sleeping bag, I want to get back in” he says. “I’ve been on and off all night, unable to sleep because of the cold” he continues. “It’s going to be a difficult few days. It would be nice if it perks up soon.” Asked if he worried for his safety, he said: “There’s always the fear. There’s always trepidation.”
Originally from the north east, he says he came to Manchester around two months ago. The man, who describes himself as an alcoholic, says he has been homeless for several years after the breakdown of his relationship was followed by mental illness.
(Image: Manchester Evening News)
He claims he wasn’t offered a place to go last night but even if he was he likely would have turned it down. “You have got to sit in a chair,” he said. “I can’t sit in a chair and rest. I just can’t do it. I would rather be outside.”
In Lincoln Square itself is a makeshift homeless camp, containing more than a dozen tents. One man, who says he came to the UK from Sudan around a year ago and he has been sleeping here for around 10 months says: “It was very, very cold. It was very difficult. Many people here are sick, struggling to eat, can’t have a shower.”
Just a few hundred yards away from the scene of last week’s tragedy near the Bridgewater Hall, stands a 63 year-old man with a rucksack on his back, and a roll matt strapped underneath.
He says he spent the night inside two sleeping bags, under a concrete canopy in the King Street area, but had to be up and moved before security began their shift in the morning. He has just been to a charity drop-in for breakfast when the M.E.N catches up with him.
A man sleeps in a doorway on Oxford Street(Image: Manchester Evening News)
“I had the opportunity to go in, from the council, but they put you in places where you have to sit up” he says. “They don’t actually give you a bed. You can be in a shared room with 15 or 20 other people, and a lot of them are crack or Spice addicts. They are the sort of people I choose to stay away from on the streets.”
He says he has been sleeping rough ‘on and off’ since 2019. He says despite the fact that ‘people die on the streets every year’, his experience means he no longer fears the cold. “It’s difficult at the beginning, but once you have done it, once, twice, three times, it’s no big thing” he says.
“It becomes normal. It’s part of the cycle and I don’t fear it. I think I have got the wherewithal to look after myself. I have got six layers on, two sleeping bags, two blankets. I use hand-warmers to keep my feet warm. They are lifesavers. If you can keep your feet warm, you can normally sleep.
“I sleep like a baby. I normally go down about about quarter to 12 and get up at about half six. People always ask ‘how do you do it?’ But I could ask the same, ‘how do you do what you do?’
A man talks to reporter Chris Slater about his experiences of sleeping rough in the freezing conditions(Image: Manchester Evening News)
Hendrix Lancaster, from the Manchester homeless charity Coffee4Craig says: “The majority of people you come across early in the morning will be very well known to the charities and the services.
“Obviously, it is life-threatening when it goes below zero. Particularly if it’s wet as well. There’s a multitude of reasons people won’t necessarily take up the offer. It can be everything from not trusting services to not feeling like they can go indoors.
“The majority of people out there have got trauma. Really traumatic pasts. And for them to trust someone on face value, and to go with someone or be taken in a taxi, that takes an enormous amount of trust. For most people, it takes months to build that kind of trust up.”
“I was working on our drop-in on New Year’s Day and I spoke to four people that I know are sleeping on the streets, and that we have worked with for years, in most cases, and all four of them said ‘no thank you'” he continues. “But all four were offered and given the opportunity to come indoors, however that looked and declined.”
Hendrix says one is squatting in an abandoned building and another has set up a camp in a wooded area. “It’s so difficult,” he says. “I think a lot of them are waiting for a more permanent solution. They’ve been out there for so long, they almost don’t want to break that routine. We’re supporting the council by referring people in and making sure people keep themselves really visible so the outreach officers can find people.
“It’s really heartbreaking when people don’t take you up on that offer. You almost hope it turns out they were sofa surfing or have got another option and that’s why they’ve said no. But the bottom line is it is just about not building up the trust yet.”
“Although a lot of people make the choice to refuse certain offers, you have to ask what the alternatives are and what that choice is” he adds. “Obviously every time we got a cold snap, there is a risk someone is going to die. But that risk is there all year.”
The council says that people coming indoors ‘allows officers to support people into accommodation paving the way to connect them with any additional support that they need and carry out housing assessment to find a suitable move on pathway.’
Speaking when she announced Manchester’s winter cold weather provisions back in November, The Deputy Leader of Manchester City Council, Coun Joanna Midgley, said: “We offer help all year round, but we know that our winter plans, provided in partnership with the Manchester Homelessness Partnership, are a lifesaver during the coldest months of the year.
“People do not have to sleep outside when the temperature is at its coldest. There will always be a warm space provided by the council and its partners who work tirelessly during this time of year to reach out to people. Bringing people off the street is often their first step in accepting an offer of help and additional support that may change the course of their future lives.
“I am pleased that this year we’re able to offer a small number of women-only accommodation spaces alongside our general offer as we know that women are more likely to accept an offer of help to come off the street if this type of accommodation is available to them.”
The council says their rough sleeper team can be contacted on 0161 234 5339 Monday – Friday 9am to 4:30pm, or Saturday and Sunday 8am to 3.30pm. Outside these times, their out of hours service can be contacted on 0161 234 5001.
People can report anyone that appears to be sleeping rough that they are concerned about via Streetlink HERE.
The advice is to call 999 if someone is unwell or distressed.