The tricky part about doing this was finding the camps, luckily I went back to see the Oxford Road camp and try and find some of the people that I had first met in my project. This was the first camp I visited when I started my project in the last Unit (research and reflect).
As you can see by the green dot on the map, this homeless camp is on London Road and only a few minutes walk from Manchester Piccadilly Station. This camp has been in the news more than any else in Manchester due to its size, so its the best place to start when trying to find bigger tents to photograph.
When I arrived back to the camp I was shocked with how much it had changed since the first time I visited it in November over three months ago. All the tents that I had originally photographed were gone and replaced with more than I had ever seen. I saw quite a few large tents which had multiple compartments too them so I decided that this would be the place I carry on my project. I decided I would come back the next day with my camera to begin asking people if I could photograph their tents.
While I was looking at the large camp, I noticed that a few of the guests of the MacDonald Hotel were staring in disgust at the sight. The hotel is on the other side of the road from the camp, which means many of their rooms look out over the camp.
This made me think that I might be able to find peoples opinions on the camp itself and if they were bothered to look at it or not, this would hopefully give me more information on peoples opinions to homeless people. The way I found out their opinions was on the hotels Trip Advisor account.
I then searched for reviews which included the words 'homeless' and that brought up 44 reviews which mention the word.
As you can see from the review screenshots that are above, many of the hotel guests comment about the homeless camp with mixed opinions. Some are completely fine with it and feel sorry for the homeless people, whereas others just complained saying that it was ruining the view and put them off the hotel. Others even took photographs of the camp and uploaded it with their reviews to further put people off the hotel. So its no doubt that the camps presence will have a knock on effect to the hotels appeal to guests.
In response to peoples complaints about the homeless camp, the hotel responded with the same statement:
"The tented area across the road is something that we work with Manchester City Council, Greater Manchester Police and The University, to whom own the land, on a daily basis to come to an agreeable resolution. Our guests understanding is very much appreciated."
As you can see, the reason for this not being evicted sooner than others have been, is because its on University of Manchester land who have approved their stay. Although the council and other businesses including the hotel have constant talks about evicting the homeless people like they have at other camps situated around the city.
Hopefully when I come back tomorrow with my camera, I will be allowed to photograph someones tent to help develop my project. And the images that I take could be used in the future to help make these people with negative opinions think about what it might be like to live in a tent in Manchester, I will do this by putting their view directly inside the tent which should create more empathy for people in this situation.