First Street used to be the place you had to go and register as being homeless. In order to get any help, you have to be registered as homeless. So First Street was the place where you went.
Not this Christmas just gone, but the Christmas before, with the volunteering group we went for a meal. Absolutely gorgeous area, you know, very gentrified and some really fancy restaurants, independent cinema, all the rest of it.
We were sat there having this wonderful meal and somebody mentioned First Street and I’m like, “Oh yeah. I remember First Street, I went there and registered as homeless.“
They said, “This is First Street!”. I mean, you could have knocked me down with a feather.
I’m looking out the window. Nah, man, this, I didn’t recognize it at all. The YMCA, the council office, nothing exists anymore. It’s all trendy restaurants, pubs and all the rest of it.
Registering as homeless has changed a bit now, but from what I know now, you go to the council offices and say, “Right, I’m homeless” and they tell you to naff off. So you go, “No, no, I’m homeless. I’m here to register”. Naff off.
Basically, it’s called gatekeeping, they don’t want people registering. But if you finally manage to do it, they do an assessment on you and they’re supposed to give you a letter telling you all their decisions and everything.
You’ve got the interim relief duty – if they find you’re in priority need, then they have to put you in temporary accommodation. There’s all these different duties. I don’t understand it all, but for all my friends, and all the people I know, none of them have ever received this letter. And this letter is the important thing because it says you’re actually registered and it supposedly tells you everything you need to know – if you can understand what they’re saying – and tells you what help you can get.
If, however, you find yourself homeless in Salford, you’re better off going into Loaves and Fishes and speaking to one of the Rough Sleepers team, and they’ll sort everything for you. They’ll make sure you get yourself registered, and get you the letter and help you as much as they can.
They’ve become friends because we know that we can trust them. We can trust what they will do, what they say they will do.
