Winner: 2024 Orwell Prize for Reporting Homelessness

Project

The UK’s second-largest city is facing a housing crisis, with 76,000 households waiting for a home. If the building of social housing continues at the current rate, it will take 276 years to accommodate everyone in Greater Manchester.

The Manchester Maze moves beyond these statistics and mainstream media coverage, to uncover human stories of resilience, loneliness, frustration and hope. Told by a group of community reporters, the web-documentary is a collective story of a community on the edge during a cost of living crisis and the housing emergency, trying to get the help they need and deserve.

By sharing their stories, they want society to see people experiencing homelessness as humans; transform how the housing emergency is perceived; challenge stereotypes and break down stigma; and inspire those with power to listen and act.

Process

In summer 2022, we partnered with Shelter to form a community reporting network in Manchester with a group of people with lived experience of unfit housing and homelessness. Through a series of creative storytelling and co-production workshops, where the group shared their own personal journeys, a concept was formed: The Manchester Maze.

From rogue landlords, to not meeting the ‘right’ criteria for support, to recovery and stigma; the Maze reflects the dead ends, barriers and circular routes that the group have experienced when trying to navigate a housing system that is not fit for purpose.

Incorporating film, audio & animation, the Maze is a ‘choose your own adventure’ style interactive online journey, with the audience forced to make binary decisions between two options at every stage. These are all real choices that the group have faced during the past few years, often being forced to chose the least worst option available, instead of being able to access the support and services they need.

Impact

Alongside the Maze, the group co-produced a Community Action Plan with their solutions and ideas to move forward in solving Greater Manchester’s Housing Emergency. This has fed into local influencing work, including a side event at the Conservative party conference in October 2023 where the films were screened to councillors, agency partners and council staff in Manchester.

As a pilot project in Manchester, the group has continued collaborating with different departments across Shelter to not only incorporate their stories, insight and ideas into future influencing work, but also advocate for the expansion of the community reporting network in new locations across the UK.