The Heartbreaking Tragedy of Queer Homelessness. We Have to Act Now.
There's a vast problem happening right now, in Manchester. Queer homelessness is absolutely skyrocketing. Here's my thoughts, as the former Chief Executive Officer of the Project Inklings charity.
As I sat on a pavement in Bolton waiting for my train, I pondered to myself: How am I going to help yet another trans woman fleeing domestic violence?
Once again, I dig out LibreOffice and write letters of support. I sigh. As the Greater Manchester housing stock is dwindling, the options become fewer and fewer. We’re in a rental crisis, one that is hitting the poorest the hardest.
It’s painful to see queer people to go through this in 2025. I see friends, and the community struggle for a safe home, a place to live where to feel safe, loved, accepted for who you are, to be able to express oneself authentically.
I ran a mental health charity called Project Inklings between 2019 and 2021.
My charity pioneered co-production methodologies by simply asking people how they would like for their housing situation to be resolved, then acting accordingly. We listened to people using active listening techniques, and then pointed them in the right direction to guide them towards safe places to stay.
We took a whole person approach. We recognised that abuse is very difficult, multi-faceted, and emotionally sensitive. We didn’t bombard domestic abuse victims with reams, and reams of paperwork, we just asked them to fill as much as they feel comfortable with sharing to us and to other organisations.
The resources we created can be found here, free to use, on my website.
It was, initially, set up as an all-purpose mental health charity after seeing too many negative experiences with the NHS, but became a full-on social benefit charity with a board of trustees that mainly focused on helping trans, non-binary and queer people to try and get them out of the grimmest situations.
We had six support workers, four grand in our charity account and about five hundred active service users at any one time. That’s a ratio of roughly eighty one people per volunteer. And yet, with technology and some very, very clever people, we managed to help the people their local authorities couldn’t.
To aid this, I developed a program called Inkbot. This is a fully fledged ticket management system that ran on a well-known messaging platform, Discord, which we chose for its simplicity. Service users and volunteers would have a simple way to ask for and run support sessions. Surprisingly, it worked really, really well. The program handled one and a half thousand support sessions.
As we clearly weren’t masochistic enough, we also decided to run this insane operation internationally. We had people from Australia, India, and America all asking for support with their housing, their mental health, and also how to navigate difficult discussions regarding their sexuality, gender, their identity.
Some of these people were in such desperate situations that it still keeps me up at night, years later. Nobody really prepares you for being a charity CEO, and especially not at the age of 20, when you have just fled home and you’re doing a uni degree. That’s one way to get a fast-track education for sure.
I was the worst student, by all accounts. My attendance was so shocking that I was called in for multiple attendance meetings by my university, mostly to check that I haven’t died in the interim as I hadn’t shown my face in months.
They only knew that I was disabled.
What they didn’t know, was that I was also running a charity full-time.
I was too busy to attend. I was saving queer people across the globe.
My Own Experiences with Homelessness
I, myself, have been homeless four times, yes, FOUR. I fled home at 18, and survived the Beast from the East. I was in 7°C degree weather, sofa surfing in the worst possible weather imaginable, with snow falling. I barely survived.
I hoped that I never would have to go through that ever again. I remember being asked to sleep by the council in an office, with nothing but makeshift dividers as that terrible cold snap hit. I then went to study at university.
I became homeless again. I ran away from domestic violence in 2023 from an abusive queer ex-partner. I spent many months arguing with the university, and the council to try and organise help, to no avail. Even professionals in the charity sector were struggling to get the council to engage, with no dice.
I was rehoused at university halls, only to be made homeless six months later as I finished university. I remember at one point my mental health got so bad that the ambulance service refused to take me to hospital as the university kept calling medical professionals for liability reasons. I survived.
Most recently, I had to run away from a flat in Stockport where the housing conditions were so bad that I was sitting in a flat that could only reach 12°C in winter with the heating on full. To have a flat with no insulation in 2024 needs to be a crime. I got threatened with court. I somehow survived that.
Each and every time, being queer has influenced the situation in every way. I talk more about my experiences in my book, Transition in Agony, which is free to read on my website, but let’s talk about some of the issues in brief:
When I left home at 18, I faced several adverse childhood experiences. Queer people are more likely to face bullying and violence, leading to an increased risk of trauma and mental health problems such as CPTSD, depression, and anxiety. These illnesses often carry on into later life.
When I ran away from domestic violence, the institutions were Britain’s institutions are not set up to support trans people. To this day, it’s unclear which refuges and shelters trans people can access. At least Refuge has made their position clear, by stating we are indeed welcome.
Trans people are more likely to experience several forms of debilitating discrimination at the same time, such as misogyny, trans-misogyny and often lower social status, which means that trans people often get missed.
That may be sounding the alarm on the obvious, given the rise of transphobia in Parliament and the courts. I’m sick and tired of hearing about whether I exist, or what rights I should have on a particular day. I’m still bloody human.
What these ‘debates’ and ‘conversations’ miss out is the true human cost of suffering. I cannot believe that in 2025, we still use good and evil as a moral framework. I can’t believe the media has become polarised in this exact way.
Sometimes,the transphobia becomes so unbearable that the trans person no longer feels welcome at home, and the person has no choice but to uproot everything. That was what happened with the person who I am currently trying to help get a place in Manchester. They were kicked out from home.
The worst part is… I have seen this before. I present to you this example.
The Hoarder’s House.
I was not prepared for the hoarder’s house. It was absolutely disgusting.
A trans man in his thirties with mental health issues came to us for help, as they were struggling with their mother regarding familial domestic abuse, with psychological bullying, gaslighting, and sexual harassment and assault.
I decided to investigate ongoing situation at home personally. What I saw, my friends, would terrify even seasoned, experienced professionals, and I’m sure many would refuse to even go in. I walked through the door, and I wretched.
I have memories of the soda bottles in every room of the house. I remember the maggots on the bins, as well as the cat shit everywhere, and to top it off… the UN Human Rights calendar on the wall, comically adding insult to injury.
He didn’t have facilities to wash himself, because everything was so grossly contaminated. The more that I walked around this house, the more terrified I became for my health. I simply cannot describe to you by text the stench.
I was not wearing any PPE, either. I was entirely on my own, and I only truly understood what it was like to have a Hoarding Disorder that day. It was a nightmare for the entire family, as there was another high needs autistic person in the household. It was clear that this was a situation needing help.
In the next few days, I thought perhaps Greater Manchester Police could help. I called the police, hoping that they could talk some sense into their mother, or at least be able to call the right services who could help. We made several referrals to organisations before then to try and safeguard, to no avail.
There was however, one small problem with me calling the police.
It became apparent that his mother would immediately recognise me from my previous visit if I spoke to the officer directly, which would have made the situation worse. So I did the only thing I could: I watched around the corner.
As soon as she came back the house to talk to the police officer, I spoke to the person I was supporting straight after and I could not believe my ears.
The Failure of the Institutions
That was the day when I lost faith in the police, as this was effectively filed as a police report as if it were another day in the force, and the policeman was completely emotionally unfazed. It was an absolute and complete absurdity.
The problem is that, you see psychological abuse is quite a tricky one to really ‘prove’ to the authorities. In an ideal world, the housing workers would be experienced psychologists, and they would be able to tell if a person has seen trauma in their lives. Unfortunately, we don’t live in that world. It’s so tragic.
Nowadays, with the homeless person I am currently supporting to find her housing, I am absolutely spoiled for choice when it comes to evidencing the abuse. I’ve a Zoom H1n recorder, a decent phone, and I’m an investigative journalist, so I am able to interview people with ease about their experiences.
But back then, I didn’t have that luxury. It was just me, and a team of queers.
The authorities were simply not interested. I remember presenting them to a Greater Manchester city council at close to 9am, and running through the entire homelessness assessment. It turns out they still use the same domestic abuse checklist as they did five years ago, I remember the idiotic questioning.
Has your abuser ever tried to drown you?
Half of the assessment was completely irrelevant. It looks like this question is no longer used, but it’s still abundantly clear that the system wants you to come out of abuse with bruises. It’s disgraceful that victims get to that point.
As they slept on people’s sofas, the council kept procrastinating. They kept using every excuse under the book to not house this person. I couldn’t believe that they were going to classify them as intentionally homeless. Seriously?
I remember standing up and asserted their rights as a human being. I actually swore in front of the housing officer, and she was offended by what I told her.
At that point, finally she started to take me, and the person in need critically.
I couldn’t take any more. After hours of quite frankly intrusive questioning, I had enough. I still don’t understand how you could call a person who has just escaped from that level of chaos as trying to in some way game the system.
I don’t understand how can someone sleep at night, rubber-stamping at work yet another homeless person as another case of ‘intentional homelessness’. Folks, I ask you: What is ‘intentional’ homelessness? It’s just homelessness.
It was wild. We tried everything before we got to this point, but because of bureaucracy, it was impossible to progress further. We were told that, as it was a privately owned home, the council had no powers to intervene. Even the Fire Service was not interested despite the huge fire hazard the reams and stacks of old newspapers were creating for the rest of the community.
This person was eventually rehoused. Without my intervention, he would have struggled to navigate this confusing pathway. It is clear that safeguards for victims of domestic violence do not work, and promote more trauma.
The 2025 Wigan Council Repeat.
Now we fast forward to today. I am once again in the same situation. I’m now helping yet another vulnerable adult, this time a trans woman. Yesterday, it became apparent the process has not changed at all in the last five years.
It is worth pointing out that what has changed in the last past five years is that I am now severely disabled. When I make these articles, I have to battle my disabilities and make expensive accommodations to make it happen.
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I spoke to a trans woman recently, Lilith, who fled domestic violence in a Greater Manchester borough. Upon speaking to her, it became apparent that she was abused by her whole extended family over the last decade or so.
Lilith fell into sex work throughout her life story. She suffers from many physical impairments, and has several struggles in her day-to-day life. She had to move back into her abusive mother’s house, as she couldn’t live solo as she was never given the opportunities required to make this financially work.
She had recently taken steps to improve her life, such as embarking in her music production course in a college in the centre of Manchester. One day, she was suddenly kicked by her mother from her house, with no warning this was coming. Mum then decided to dump all her life’s belongings in a bin bag.
As such, she recently ended up sleeping in my living room, because she had nowhere else to go. Lilith waited four bloody weeks without them attempting to undertake a social services and formal homelessness housing assessment, despite my attempts to send the council emails urging them to assess the situation. They insisted it was our fault, even though her phone was broken.
Four weeks. During this time, I was supposed to look after her. I live in a queer household full of very understanding, disabled people who need extra support, and we were struggling profusely from the overcrowding her sofa surfing was causing. I was trying to contact Wigan council every single day.
It turns out that it is impossible to contact Wigan Council’s homelessness team by phone, for example, as it just forwards you to their voicemail service. The number on Homeless Link and the council website is not correct, either.
Despite the homelessness team not working out of the building, we spoke to them after spending an hour and a half in Wigan Town Hall. I refused to leave Town Hall until this vulnerable person was in the homelessness system.
At one point, we were very politely fobbed off, and we were told to register with The Brickworks, a homelessness charity which I have worked with before through Greater Manchester Better Outcomes Partnership. I have done voluntary work in the past with them on co-produced services, and they agreed how the council was dealing with this was absolutely ludicrous.
What on worth is going on with this multi-million pound council, which did have options emergency provision for housing available, to cause such gate-keeping on housing access on some the most absurd of reasons imaginable?
The Council Interview.
“I don’t want this to sound like a red flag, but”. When you hear these words, you know for sure it’s a red flag from our lovely Greater Manchester council.
The council were attempting to put Lilith in a House of Multiple Occupancy, even though she has severe disabilities such as Dandy-Walker Syndrome, a form of developmental disability not dissimilar to the challenges of autism.
The council acted in a patronising way that breaks the Equality Act 2010. At one point, they asked Lilith in a very insensitive way, whether she would be able to manage temporary accommodation alone, being away from my house.
Just for some context, Lilith was perfectly capable of managing a flat on her own. I then heard that the council was going to fill up the HMO with random strangers that ‘will come in’. That was when I realised it wasn’t safe for her.
I understand that housing is difficult, and it is important to ascertain certain facts, but it was clear that the council workers were trying to rattle it off as fast as possible, without providing Lilith any mental health support, or any sympathy. It didn’t feel like data collection to me, but a full-on data harvest.
Lilith was forced to recount traumatic events in order to be given a place for a day. Throughout the meeting, the council kept trying to suggest to me that if I just housed her for a few more days, they would sort her out a safe place to stay, even though I told them multiple times it’s not my choice to make.
Lilith was in complete despair. They kept insisting that they were doing this for her safety, even though Lilith repeatedly yelled ‘no’ to being subjected to care needs assessment. They wouldn’t give her a break, it was relentless. It was as if Lilith was a number to them, not an adult individual in front of them.
The council worker at one point doubled down, and insisted that this was a safe place and they were going to execute their plan anyway, despite Wigan Council’s claiming they use a person-centred approach to serve service users.
When they left the room to ask for the service manager, I asked the question of ‘what would be the best thing for you’, a question that at no point was asked, a basic principle of person-centric care. Clearly, they forgot their training.
There was a lack of consent for yet another social care assessment, they were directly in violation of the Care Act. Lilith just wanted to feel safe. They wouldn’t listen to her at all. If they had listened, they would have known better than to put her in a HMO next to abusive family members.
It goes on. They started going on about GDPR consent forms, they ask if she’s ever been on bail, if she had a GP and worst of all, they read her previous legal name out loud, after she specifically requested for them to not do this. Twats.
The overarching problem is that it’s clear that Wigan council has absolutely no understanding of the needs of people who are fleeing domestic violence. They are not typical homeless cases. They need to be dealt with by domestic violence specialists, rather than emotionless bureaucrats at these councils.
As many as 77% of people who flee home do so because of homophobia and transphobia at home, and this was what happened in Lilith’s case. She was effectively, kicked out for exercising her freedom to be herself in her home.
As of writing, Lilith is still not permanently housed. I will be writing a formal complaint to Wigan council about the situation, and how this process can be reviewed, and changed, so that nobody has to go through what Lilith did.
Thank you for reading, and I hope that I will be able to give you an update on Lilith’s situation and the council’s response as soon as we are able to.
Share this article if you felt the council’s treatment of Lilith was abhorrent.