‘I had bare wires hanging down’
At one B&B, we uncovered a stream of 999 calls in relation to overdoses, fits and traumatic injuries, as well as several deaths, one as recently as December.
Elsewhere, another landlord had moved homeless people back into his large terraced property after two separate fires had burned away the roof.
Eventually, residents simply moved to his other establishment, over the road, where former tenants spoke of similar squalor.
Often people - particularly single men - speak of living in such conditions for years, if not decades.
Paul, (not his real name), lived until recently in one such establishment.
After becoming homeless following a relationship breakdown and a spell in hospital, the 49-year-old says his local housing provider simply handed him a slip of paper with a name and address on it, before telling him to get the bus 10 miles to a four-storey house in Openshaw.
When he got there, still recovering from his illness, Paul says he was so shocked at conditions, including rampant use of hard drugs, that he moved to a nearby B&B in the hope it may be better. It wasn’t.
“I was given a ‘license agreement’ that said I’d have to pay £20 top-up for seven meals a week,” he says, showing the M.E.N. a poorly-typed scrap of paper containing spelling mistakes.
“I never had any kind of meal. For whatever rea- son, the locked.
“My room was absolutely filthy, with a tiny sink that was too small to get a kettle under. I learned how to make baked beans in a kettle, thinking ‘I just shouldn’t be doing things like this.’
“There were mice in my room, I had bare wires hanging down from the ceiling and it was like that from day one.
“When I arrived, there was no shower working in the entire house and I had to cobble together some bits to make one we could use. At one point, the bathroom ceiling caved in because the water was leaking from the toilet above.
“Nearly every window was cracked, there was no washing machine, no locks on the bedroom doors - or if there was, you could get in with a lollipop stick, so I’d put a chair behind the door to stop anyone getting in.
“There was a rat seen on the ground floor at one point and the front door often got left open so people could wander in. There were fights.
“I didn’t feel safe, and I can look after myself.”
Yet some landlords are kitchen was bringing in hefty amounts of benefits from the destitute people who land on their doorstep, according to homeless charities and residents themselves.
At Paul’s B&B the M.E.N. has estimated that, at full occupancy, tenants could be paying collectively more than £3,000 in housing benefit each month, despite them claiming they are receiving virtually nothing but a roof in return.
In some cases, they don’t even get that.
On Gransmoor Avenue in Higher Openshaw, a large house well-known to local charities - not technically a B&B, but similarly classed as ‘unsupported temporary accommodation’ for the homeless - had an extensive fire in its roof in June 2016, attended by five fire engines. When they arrived, firefighters found residents had managed to escape. But the following day a second fire saw another six engines called out, only for crews to find a homeless man once again living in the property.
Just under a month later, the council’s housing enforcement team entered the same house after being contacted by Justlife, who were concerned that people were still living in the building.
At that point the council placed a prohibition notice on the house, having again found a homeless man living inside. They also found its landlord, Mr Ali, was trying to move a second former resident ‘back into the property’.
At that point, the council placed a prohibition notice on the house, having again found a homeless man living inside. They also found its landlord, Mr Ali, was trying to move a second former resident ‘back into the property’.
Their enforcement notice meant that were he to do so again, he would be breaking the law.
But at that point, many of the residents simply moved over the road to one of the landlord’s other properties, Warren Guest House, according to charities and former tenants spoken to by the M.E.N.
A string of previous residents at that B&B have told how they have never had meals despite paying extra for breakfasts, describing squalid conditions, a locked kitchen, broken windows and no locks on the bedrooms. Justlife regularly sees its residents at their drop-ins.