The number of rough sleepers on the streets of Liverpool hit a record high last year.
New government figures show that there were 36 people sleeping rough on the streets of the city on a single night in Autumn last year, which is used to provide a snapshot of numbers. This number is a rise of 20 on the year before and significantly is the highest number the city has recorded since records started in 2010.
The city's figures come against a backdrop of soaring rough sleeping rates across the country. The data from the Department of Levelling Up shows that the number of people sleeping rough in England rose by more than a quarter last year.
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On a single night in autumn, 3,069 people slept outside, 26% more than in 2021, says the Department of Levelling Up, Communities and Housing. The large rise comes after four years of decreases in rough sleeping, partly due to efforts made during the pandemic.
During the covid period, the government's Everyone In initiative provided more than 37,000 rough sleepers with a place to stay. The new figures come despite a government manifesto promise to end rough sleeping by 2024.
Charities have said that people who have never previously slept rough are now being forced into the streets. Organisations are seeing different types of people now in crisis.
Liverpool homeless charity Papercup Project carries out outreach work for rough sleepers in the city and also runs a coffee shop that raises money for those in crisis and welcomes rough sleepers in.
Founder Michelle Langan said she and her team are seeing new people on the streets as the cost of living continues to bite.
She said: "An increase in street homelessness is something all charities have been braced for this year. The increase in energy bills and cost of living has meant that everyone is finding it hard to make ends meet, and for anyone who was already at the edge of coping, this has pushed them over.
"We ourselves are seeing some new faces coming into the shop for food and drink. This week, three people came in who were newly homeless, they were worried and frightened. The government had made a lot of positive strides over the pandemic to tackle homelessness, but sadly now it feels like that is all unravelling."
In December, the ECHO spoke to a number of rough sleepers in Liverpool including newly homeless Tomasz Janas. The 34-year-old, from Poland, had recently lost his job as a forklift driver and been kicked out of his rented accommodation. He had gone from working hard and getting on in life to sleeping in shop doorways in the city centre in a matter of weeks.
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