The service for Lidia at St Michael’s Church 

• I ATTENDED the memorial service last Friday for Lidia Venegas, the Bolivian woman who died in the street in Kentish Town.

I should like to thank Father Michael Thomas, vicar of St Michael’s Camden Town, and the CNJ, particularly journalist Frankie Lister-Fell, who arranged the service.

Residents of Kentish Town will remember seeing Lidia camped outside the former Barclays bank in Kentish Town Road over the last six months.

When workers needed access to the front of the building to replace the windows, Lidia moved round the corner to Islip Street, where she sadly died in early January.

St Michael’s Church was full of people who had known Lidia, as she had spent over 23 years in Camden Town. As Father Michael said in his moving homily, “She had so many friends, and this community loved Lidia.”

Although Lidia spent only a few months in our Kentish Town South ward, she left a strong impression and tweaked our conscience about homelessness.

I should like to thank all the residents who regularly brought her hot drinks and pastries and took the time to speak to her. Kentish Town café owners also kindly invited her in for food and drink and, importantly, let her use their “facilities”.

After the service I met a woman from La Paz, the capital of Bolivia, who had known Lidia there when they were younger. I was fascinated to hear that Lidia used to make cakes to sell for a living – I’d like to think she appreciated the fine offerings of today’s Kentish Town cafés.

Many residents asked me why Camden Council couldn’t provide Lidia with some form of accommodation. However, things are not always what they seem: local councillors immediately took steps to arrange this.

Lidia was regularly visited each week by our “Routes off the Streets” outreach team to check on her safety and wellbeing, and she was offered a place to stay. But she declined all offers of accommodation: as we heard at the memorial service, Lidia was fiercely independent.

Let us hope there was comfort in the words of one of the hymns at the service: “Heaven’s morning breaks and Earth’s vain shadows flee; in life, in death, O Lord, abide with me.”

CLLR JENNY HEADLAM-WELLS
Labour, Kentish Town
South ward