Since January 2025, hundreds of people with experience of forced migration have had to sleep rough in Manchester. Following their arrival in the UK, after fleeing war, destruction, and other forms of persecution, these people have been unable to find secure housing. After a series of evictions from tented encampments in the city centre, empty council-owned buildings were squatted to autonomously meet the community’s need for shelter.
Manchester City Council’s racist and violent pursuit of possession orders has resulted in 4 evictions since February 2025. This harmful and violent approach to people seeking safety and shelter, is once again driving the community into more precarious living conditions.
People experiencing Manchester hostile housing and homelessness policy have shared:
“Living on the streets without shelter has caused me immense harm. Despite the ethnic and tribal persecution and instability I endured in my home country of Sudan – which forced me to leave in search of a better life elsewhere – the United Kingdom welcomed me and provided protection, for which I am grateful. However, I am currently suffering greatly, primarily due to homelessness and total instability. I rarely want to leave my tent or even speak to my family; I have no heart for anything. Thoughts plague me, and I ask myself: what is the point of my existence when every door is closed to me? I suffered in my homeland, and now I am suffering again here in the UK – without a job, a home, or any peace of mind or body.”
“After I was granted asylum, I found myself homeless. I slept on the street for the first time in my life. I truly felt like I had left my home. My mental state changed; I became almost insane.”
If you are a health worker living in Manchester, please sign the open letter below which will be sent to local government leaders in Manchester in support of community demands for no more evictions and housing for all.
Note: Names of all signatories will be displayed on this page.
Manchester health workers stand in solidarity with community members facing eviction
We stand in solidarity with all people surviving homelessness and housing insecurity. We write now to express our full solidarity with the demands shared on May 14th 2026 by a community of refugees and migrants who have been homeless for months and some over a year, who are now at risk of eviction. They demanded that court proceedings be stopped, and that the community be allowed to stay in the building with no threat of eviction, until everyone is permanently housed in a safe and dignified way. Sadly, a high court writ was issued and bailiffs were booked to evict community members from the space that they have turned into a shelter.
We understand that thanks to community mobilising efforts, a 40-day extension has recently been granted and that the squat will be evicted on or after the 10th of August. When this happens more than 40 people will be forced to sleep rough. Their health and wellbeing will only suffer as a consequence.
People forced into homelessness face multiple health-related challenges. Stigma, neglect, barriers to mental health support, limited access to primary care alongside lack of basic hygiene and washing facilities such as toilets and showers, and limited access to water, nutritious food, and cooking facilities. It’s harder to find work, access education, and meet-up with friends and family. The survival of homeless people is criminalised forcing them into a constant state of hyper vigilance and this policing causes serious harm to health. Housing security is a basic need of utmost importance which should be seen as a primary mental health intervention. Adequate housing is recognised as a human right and is fundamental to psychological and physical well-being and health.
Asylum seekers, refugees, and people with precarious immigration status face additional challenges, namely language barriers that make navigating a new health system even more difficult. Homelessness, displacement, evictions and continual movement of primary living space, causing uncertainty, lack of control, passivity, and feelings of meaninglessness and powerlessness experienced by refugees are directly linked to psychosocial distress and suffering.
On top of that, rising racist and fascist attacks on our streets are seriously damaging the physical and mental health of all those being targeted by the far-right, namely racialised people and Muslim communities. Lack of shelter means these community members have no respite from this racist violence and limited spaces to protect themselves in. People living in encampments in Manchester have experienced violence and racism from members of the public, including harassment by far right streamers, as well as people kicking their tents and urinating in their living space.
Alongside our support for the demands of housing for all by this community in Manchester, we understand that tackling health inequalities also requires us to hold the systems that produce harm to account. Without wholesale systemic change of health and housing systems, which in themselves require global revolution, the health community will always be limited in how they can tackle health inequalities.
However, as health workers, we can and will continue to provide clinical housing advocacy and care for our patients, as they continue to be harmed by lack of social homes, damp and mould, the cost of living, border regimes, policing and the ever worsening climate emergency.
Housing is the foundation of health, and stopping this eviction is an urgent public health priority. As local leaders, you have the opportunity to protect the health and wellbeing of this community. Meeting the community’s demand to remain in the building without threat of eviction until everyone is permanently housed in a safe and dignified way is an urgent public health priority. We urge you to act now to prevent further avoidable harm and ensure that everyone in this community has access to the safe, secure and dignified housing they need to live healthy lives.
Signed:
- Linnea Freear, Principal Clinical scientist, The Christie NHS Foundation Trust
- James Cavet, Consultant haematologist, The Christie NHS FT
- Michael Wake, Clinical scientist , The Christie, NHS foundation trust
