'Peoples lives are at risk' warn St Helens homeless charity as temperatures drop
The Hope Centre in St Helens say more must be done to stop rough sleeping
A St Helens homeless charity say that it is 'completely wrong' that people will be sleeping on our streets as temperatures drop towards zero.
The Hope Centre in St Helens is urging the government to do more to tackle rough sleeping and homelessness.
This comes as there are more than 18,000 homeless people in the North West according to the latest figures from Shelter.
This is an increase of 29% in just one year.
Danny McGarvey is a Homeless Prevention Officer for the Hope House. He says drastic change is needed: "No person should be being asked to stay out in anything like the conditions we are seeing at the moment.
"It is a sad state of affairs that there is a community of people that are used to dealing with this weather."
He's warning that the problem extends far past the weather: "Its not just the cold that is killing people who are homeless, its the lack of services around mental health and addiction.
"We've lost in our project here 15 people in the last year alone due to the issues around homelessness."
Speaking to us during his visit to Accrington, the Prime Minister, Rishi Sunak, says that they are committed to stopping people from sleeping rough.
He said: "We don't want to see anyone sleeping rough on our streets.
"What we are doing is investing about £2 billion over a three year period.
"Because of that investment nationally rough sleeping is around a third lower than it was pre-pandemic, so we are making progress but of course there is more to do."
The Prime Minister added: "Part of that investment is going to on to providing what I call 'move-on accommodation', so around 6,000 accommodation slots are going to be built around the country.
"We are also investing more on treating the underlying causes that people have like drug and alcohol addiction, so we are putting more money into treatment as well."
Danny McGarvey does not believe that this goes far enough: "They need to get out and speak to people and the charities who are on the street doing the work and listen to them.
"They came into this parliament saying they were going to end street homelessness. How is that going?"