‘Migrant HMOs’ in Salford are under attack. But is everything as it seems?

In the aftermath of heavy rain, on a quiet street in East Salford, a woman is hurrying towards a terraced house. A little boy grasps her hand, smiling, breaking into sporadic skips as he tries to keep pace. Shards of glass litter the road and numerous windows have been covered with wooden boards.

This unassuming pair live in one of the five houses targeted on this street last week in a supposed attack on Houses in Multiple Occupation (HMOs). But the woman – who is black, in her 30s, and declines to give her name for obvious reasons – tells me that her house is not an HMO at all. Still, in the early hours of Thursday morning, she and her four young children woke to the sound of their windows shattering. Her new car was damaged too. “I’ve never had anything like it before,” she says. I suggest that it must have been terrifying. “It’s okay. God protects me and my kids,” she responds.  

This woman and her neighbours were not the first people to be caught up in what has been described on social media as a “protest” against these kinds of properties. Any house or flat that’s rented out by three or more tenants – at least two of whom are unrelated – and where they all share facilities like a kitchen, is classed as an HMO. A lot of students or young professionals live in them, and they can also house adults seeking asylum. In some circles, the term has become synonymous with migrant accommodation. 

Last week’s attacks have divided Salford, prompting public outrage, as well as praise, across social media. Facebook, Instagram and TikTok have grown rife with videos titled things like “SALFORD ERUPTS”. Much of the social media coverage on self-styled citizen journalist channels has been met with comments like “Keep up the good work” or “Well done lads”. A 13-year-old boy has been arrested in relation to the incidents. 

One image in particular, the words “No HMOs” scrawled across a boarded-up window, has been shared widely across social and mainstream media alike. While this message – daubed in black paint – was unambiguous, it seems the facts behind it are considerably less so. 

The final straw

Just before 1pm on Monday 5 October, Labour councillor Hannah Robinson-Smith decided she’d had enough. Driving home, she spotted an increasing number of banners draped across fences or hung on posts. “IRLAM AND CADISHEAD SAY NO TO MIGRANT HMOs”, they read. These signs formed part of a protest in Robinson-Smith’s ward, in the south west of Salford, where anger over a perceived increase in migrant housing had been festering for some time.

In late September, a Facebook group of the same name had been set up by locals with a clear goal: to urge Salford City Council to stop residential homes being converted into HMOs for immigrants. A Change.org petition on the matter launched by the group received almost 1,650 signatures. 

Around this time, a number of people, such as Ashlea Simon, the former co-leader of far-right party Britain First, and a social media auditor who goes by the name Cozzy, started to take more of an interest in Salford’s housing situation too. One video, posted by Cozzy on YouTube earlier this month, shows him and Simon “exposing Salford’s migrant HMO crisis”, presumably using the council’s online register to locate licensed HMOs. “This backs onto a nursery,” Cozzy says in one video, gesturing towards a detached house. “I’m not insinuating anything but I wouldn’t want my daughter’s school to face an HMO like this. In fact, I’d probably move her school.” 

So as Robinson-Smith drove home last Monday, she realised that the situation was only getting worse. Seeing new protest banners near her house was the final straw. She tells me she opened Facebook and made “an initial statement in the height of emotion.” She frequently posts updates for her ward, but never before had one attracted so many comments.