Those at the sharpest end of this emergency have little faith that government strategies will do anything to turn their lives around
Colin has been homeless on the streets of Liverpool for more than 18 years
On the cold winter streets of Liverpool city centre, just round the corner from the busy Williamson Square, a young woman is sat against a shop window, rubbing her hands together and trying to keep warm. Her name is Zoe, she is 39 and she has only been homeless for a couple of months. It is her first experience of sleeping rough and she is scared.
“I am fleeing domestic violence so I made myself homeless two months ago,” she explains. The toll of eight weeks of sleeping in doorways and avoiding the dangers faced by a single woman in this dangerous world are already painfully clear.
“It’s scary. I have had bullies come and steal my phone and take my money off me. I try to linger with other people to keep safe or stay in Maccies all night.”
While busy shoppers rush past, excitedly gathering their final festive gifts for friends and family, Zoe is contemplating an altogether different Christmas experience.
“I’m dreading Christmas,” she says in a solemn, hushed tone. “It’s my first one (on the streets). I just try to keep warm.”
Zoe is hoping to get a place soon, she is being supported by The Whitechapel Centre, Liverpool’s primary homelessness charity, but knows her situation won’t be resolved in time for Christmas Day. She warns that her sudden, spiralling situation could happen to anyone.
“At the end of the day, you are just a paycheque away from being me. This could happen to anyone.”
And she’s right. sitting on the other side of the square, which is filling with life as the morning moves on, sits John and another story of how quickly homelessness can set in.
An older man at 65, John was working as a gardener in Wales before his work dried up and he couldn’t pay rent on his flat.
John, originally from Northern Ireland, made his way to Liverpool where he had distant relatives, but found they had moved on. So for now, he is bedding down on the freezing streets of the city centre.
“I couldn’t get work so I couldn’t pay the rent so I was out on the streets,” he explains, in a hunched position.
“I am trying to get a place with the Whitechapel, but there is only so much they can do. We will see what happens.”
It’s been two-and-a-half months on the streets now for John and the temperature is dropping.
“It is very cold now,” he says with a grimace. “You have to try your best with sleeping bags in somewhere dry, just got to try your best.
“I’m not looking forward to Christmas, hopefully I will get in somewhere.”
Far too many people will be sleeping rough on the streets of Liverpool this Christmas
Sadly at 65, John doesn’t have much faith in his future prospects. He adds: “I’m on my way out of this planet thank god. It is what it is.”
While both John and Zoe have only recently found themselves sleeping rough in Liverpool, Colin, 52, who is sat holding his legs for warmth in nearby Church Street, has a lot more experience of these difficult conditions.
“I’ve been homeless for 18 years now, ” he explains. “It happened because of drug addiction and then going to prison, but when I came out I didn’t get any help.”
He’s not doing too well right now, he explains, holding up a black cast wrapped around his broken right wrist. “I also just came out of hospital after having pneumonia.
“My addiction is still going. When I was in prison I was on methadone and then I went on a reduction course, but it got rough.
“But when you are out here, why not take drugs? It is an escape. It might seem like a cop out but it’s an escape.”
At this point, Colin’s partner Amy, who has been sleeping rough for two years, comes over to speak. She says that once you are on the streets it is very hard to make a change because of people’s judgements.
“When I go into a shop to ask about part-time work, they just give me dirty looks because they know I am on the streets. I can’t even go and buy something without being followed by security guards. If we just had a tiny bit of help we could fly.
“I’m 40 and I’ve been homeless for about two years. It’s my own fault, I chose drugs over my family. But when you try and better yourself you can’t.”
Colin and Amy did have some help at one point, but it didn’t last very long.
He explains: “When I got out of jail they put me in a temporary flat in Kensington for 12 weeks. That was the happiest we ever were, we had a place to go back to that was ours. But it was only for 12 weeks.”
Amy adds: “It feels like we are nowhere near getting a place right now.”
Zoe, John, Colin and Amy are among hundreds of people in Liverpool spending Christmas on the cold streets this year.
The most recent official figures, taken from the month of September, indicated that there were 289 people sleeping rough in Merseyside. This figure was 49 more than the year before and more than double the numbers counted in 2021.
In Liverpool specifically, the figure is 161. Three times as many as in any of the neighbouring boroughs.
Speaking about this grim situation, David Carter, the chief executive of the Whitechapel Centre says: “It is symptomatic of the crisis, of things being so wrong.
“Last year we worked with 4,670 different individuals, of those, 1,258 had spent one or more nights sleeping rough in our region. So 27% of everyone we worked with had slept rough. That should be the absolute minority, it is disgusting.
“The numbers of people coming through our doors have continued to increase but the single biggest cohort is those rough sleeping. It was a 20% increase last year.”
Many are facing a difficult winter on Liverpool’s cold streets (Image: Liverpool Echo)
The government recently published its major plan to try and address the homelessness and rough sleeping crisis in cities like Liverpool, pledging to halve the numbers bedding down on the streets by the end of this parliament.
The strategy – backed by £3.5bn of funding, also aims to reduce the time families are spending living in temporary bed and breakfast accommodation and prevent more people from becoming homeless in the first place.
Mr Carter, whose organisation has been at the front-line of tackling Liverpool’s own homelessness crisis in recent years, said it was positive to see this commitment, but said it is only a start, with much more investment needed.
He told the ECHO: “It is definitely a step in the right direction. It is good to have a three-year strategy and at the heart of it is the fact that prevention is key. That is heartening because we know the damage that homelessness causes is phenomenal so prevention being recognised is brilliant.
“When austerity came, the first things that went were prevention services and we shouldn’t be waiting for people to be in crisis, the damage is done at that stage. So they are using the right language. But it is only a start.”
But for those at the sharpest end of this emergency, the same people facing Christmas on the streets, there is little faith that politicians hold the answers to a better future.
“I don’t have any faith at all in that,” says John, leaning against the cold glass of a shop window. “I don’t trust politicians.”