Rachel Freeborn and Elodie Berland from Streets Kitchen

A GRASSROOTS aid group working to help the homeless believes the number of rough sleepers in Camden will grow as the coronavirus crisis goes on.

And Streets Kitchen remains unconvinced by government claims that 90 per cent of people without a home have been temporarily housed during the lockdown.

As virus restrictions are being eased and fears are growing over what the future holds for people who have been given hotel places, the New Journal joined Streets Kitchen on one of its rounds, starting in Camden Town.

When we arrived, volunteers Elodie Berland and Rachel Freeborn were counting food parcels, all labelled with a rainbow, a symbol now synonymous with the pandemic.

Wearing face masks and gloves, we then headed down the High Street and within 20 minutes food had been distributed to more than a dozen people, most of whom were still asleep on the floor when the packages were laid down beside them.

“We’ve been seeing a lot of people out here every day,” said Ms Berland.

“People are hungry and confused and they need information about what’s going on. Some of the public are being horrible to the people we see because they’re believing the government who are saying all the homeless people are indoors. But that’s just not true.”

The group, founded by Jon Glackin, has been working as part of a homeless task force with the Museum of Homelessness, Outside Project, Union Chapel and others to make sure the needs of rough sleepers are still being met.

Camden Council says it has placed 160 people in emergency accommodation including hotel rooms since the government announced its “Everyone In” policy which directed local authorities to house all rough sleepers to protect them from the virus.

Last week, there was confusion over whether there were plans to pull the plug on funding for the scheme, after a leaked report in Manchester suggested this was on the cards but the government insisted it was not.

Streets Kitchen is currently out delivering food in Camden four days a week and is seeing 70 to 80 people a day, and a further 20 to 30 people in King’s Cross, almost reaching levels seen before the virus outbreak

. “It’s quite frightening, actually,” said Mr Glackin. “Everyone is supposed to be ‘in’, but the numbers are almost back to normal.”

Some rough sleepers on the streets are in the process of getting a temporary place to stay from the council, while others have refused accommodation or left it.

A growing number are either new to the area or are now on the streets having lost their jobs and then their homes as a result amid the crisis. Volunteers told of a man homeless for just two weeks having lost his job in the construction industry and then his flat. In his 40s, it was the first time he had been street homeless and was in a great deal of distress.

It is understood he has since been given a place to stay by St Mungo’s homeless charity, but volunteers warn it’s a sign of things to come. The quiet streets have added a new layer of desperation to the plight of rough sleepers who have lost a source of income through begging, access to shops and toilets where they can get drinking water and human interaction.

“Social distancing” measures such as soaking the seats outside King’s Cross station with water – to “discourage large gatherings” – is adding to a hostile environment, according to Streets Kitchen’s volunteers.

“The result is counterintuitive to getting rough sleepers off the streets,” said Ms Freeborn. “Once they leave the area they disappear and lose access to the support groups and council workers providing a route off the streets.”

Senior figures at Camden Council have talked about seizing the lockdown measures as an opportunity to make sure nobody ends up sleeping on the streets in the future.

The Town Hall has said there is no immediate plan to end hotel accommodation for the homeless. The council agrees that it is finding new people arriving on the streets and said that it was trying to provide help as soon as possible. Anybody who is worried about somebody they see can phone the council or use its “Camden Safer Streets app”.

Council leader Councillor Georgia Gould said: “This has been a massive effort and we appreciate the funding from government, but if we can get all rough sleepers off the streets and into accommoda­tion during a crisis, there’s no reason we can’t do that all of the time. We shouldn’t have people on our streets.”