A man was seen sitting in snow in Rochester High Street today as freezing weather conditions brought sub-zero temperatures (Picture: Getty)

When temperatures drop below zero, emergency shelters in London open their doors to rough sleepers to provide beds to anyone seen sleeping on the streets.

The Severe Weather Emergency Protocol (SWEP) involves local authorities, homelessness providers and faith and community groups with the aim that nobody should have to spend the night outside in the snow and freezing cold.

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Dan Olney, Assistant Director of Pan London Street Homeless and Outreach Services for St Mungo’s, explained that emergency accommodation will save lives this week as the Beast from the East continues to bring extreme weather and plunging temperatures.

‘It’s an emergency when anyone is sleeping rough on the street, particularly if you consider they are vulnerable or have specific needs – like mental health needs – they are vulnerable at any time when rough sleeping,’ he told Metro.co.uk.




‘If you compound that with extreme weather, it becomes completely life threatening. People will die.

‘Then it is absolutely crucial that we can open emergency shelters and make sure that we make spaces available.’

Forecasters have warned the cold conditions will continues for a number of days (Picture: Getty)

Dan explained that the number of extra rough sleepers relying on emergency shelters in the capital alone in the coming days will be ‘in the hundreds’.

He said: ‘The Mayor of London changed the severe weather emergency protocol last year. It used to be that emergency shelters opened when there was three or more days of freezing temperatures – now it is every time the temperature drops below zero.

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‘When it’s a severe stretch like this the shelters are incredibly busy. It’s hard to tell exactly how many more people will be staying in the emergency shelters but each London Borough offers a minimum of 10 extra spaces, then each outer London borough offers a minimum of five.

‘When these local area positions fill we offer a safety net which has 80 spaces.

‘At the moment we are already getting a high number of referrals and people are actively seeking out shelter for the night and so across London there will be hundreds of people that are being brought into our emergency shelters.’

There are several ways people can help, from volunteering their time – like at this soup kitchen at Muswell Hill Baptist Church, London – to donating money (Picture: Rex)

How you can help

Dan advises there are three practical ways people can get involved in helping rough sleepers – particularly during the freezing weather – that will be of most benefit to them.

How you can help 1. Report

You can report every time you see somebody sleeping rough to the charity StreetLink which then helps teams to go out and meet rough sleepers to be able to assign them places in emergency shelters and bring them in off the street. With temperatures dropping across London tonight & this w/e @MayorofLondon has opened emergency shelters to ensure people sleeping rough have somewhere warm to stay. Please show your support by donating or tell us via https://t.co/GHb8gNJR1U https://t.co/vYE2iCFWaF — Street_Link (@Tell_StreetLink) February 23, 2018 It can often be people that outreach teams are not already aware of – so enables the public to be the eyes and ears for staff who are able to help those sleeping rough. ‘This is incredibly important for us because it can often alert us to rough sleepers that we didn’t know about before,’ Dan said. ‘If you see someone rough sleeping on your way to work and you refer them to StreetLink that could make the difference between that person being found by one of our outreach teams and being brought inside or not – potentially saving their life.’ 2 Donate It can sometimes feel like you want to give more to homeless hostels and shelters in the form of toiletries, food or bedding, but often, a donation of money can go further. ‘It is understandable that people want to make practical donations to shelters, which is always welcomed, but it can be difficult to distribute to the places that need it most,’ Dan explained. ‘Instead, if members of the public would like to donate to St Mungos, StreetLink or other homeless charities – which they can do on the StreetLink app – that ensures that money is spent on getting resources to the right places. ‘It also goes towards paying for our trained staff because once SWEP is implemented and rough sleepers come in – we don’t want to see them go back to the streets again. ‘We want to find ways to help to get them housing, help to get them mental health support and stay in contact with them to get them off the streets for good.’ 3. Volunteer The third thing people can do if they want to actively help out is to volunteer with a homeless charity, at a shelter or with StreetLink. Dan said: ‘It gets very very busy at this time of year and it is such a vital service so we really need people who are able to come in and take phone calls and help us to refer to outreach teams so that they can go out and about to help people on the streets.’

There are a number of other things you can do if you see a homeless person sleeping rough in the snow, which Metro.co.uk has highlighted here.

How to contact StreetLink You can find them via their website here, download their app on your iPhone or Android. Making an online referral allows StreetLink to process it more efficiently and reach the homeless person more quickly. When you can’t report in-app or online, call their 24-hour hotline on 0300 500 0914. *In Scotland, local authorities are obliged to house homeless people that same day. Because of this, rough sleepers are dealt with on a town or city-by-city basis. Shelter has published a list of organisations you can contact for help depending on where in Scotland you are.