I have worked for a variety of homeless charities for over 20 years, so generally not much surprises me when it comes to the reality of poverty and destitution.

However, this week I was out doing a street count in London to assess how many people are actually sleeping on the streets. It’s been a while since I did outreach work like this and it made me reflect on what I saw.  I was particularly struck by three things:

1. How dangerous and frightening the streets are

I was out deep into the night and at around 2.00 am, it struck me again how dangerous and frightening life on the streets actually is. In the eerie silence of a city stilled, my ears became acutely aware of every noise. Every person wandering around was a cause of suspicion: Why are they there? What are they up to? Where are they going?

It struck me how damaging the impact of…