For around five months, a former vet surgery on Barton Road in Eccles has been home to those who would otherwise have been living on the streets. Around thirty homeless people have been through its doors and rooms over the period but the half dozen who currently reside there are being evicted tomorrow, Friday, and face an uncertain future.
They include seven month's pregnant Anna and partner Miaszko, who were found living in an Eccles churchyard two weeks ago with just a blanket and one small bag of possessions.
"I was tired and nobody would help" she says "Stuart, from the Shelter, asked me where I lived and I said 'Here'. He brought me to this building and for the first time in my life I've found very nice people."
Anna, originally from Poland, has been in the country for 15 years, working for eight years in a continental food factory before being told that her medical condition of epilepsy wasn't compatible with her job. She now takes eleven tablets a day to help with the illness.
"We're trying to get them referred through My Space for housing, otherwise it's back to the streets" says Stuart Potts of the Shelter "As part of the Bed Every Night scheme they want to put them in the Narrowgate hostel with 35 people in one room like a refugee camp. Men are mixed with women and people with mental health issues, drug issues, drink issues...a person who has no issues at all apart from housing comes out with drug, drink and mental health issues!"
Indeed, last time Anna was given a bed at Narrowgate there were just two women and thirty men in the same dormitory... "Here we have a bit of safety" she says. At the Barton Road Shelter she has her own room that is now full of possessions donated by the community, including clothes, books and a duvet.
"The local residents have been helping us, giving us food...and a bloke came up and gave us £80 to buy bedding" says Stuart "At court a few weeks ago, the judge said this was a 'very sensitive' case. The owners wanted us out of the building almost immediately but he gave us five weeks which is this Friday. Some of our residents have been re-housed and some have been offered temporary accommodation. But we know that Bed Every Night isn't working properly and some face being back on the streets, including Anna."
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