News, views and top stories in your inbox. Don't miss our must-read newsletter Sign up Thank you for subscribing We have more newsletters Show me See our privacy notice Invalid Email

A council has vowed to do more for rough sleepers after a Facebook post slamming the 'uncomfortable truth' on homelessness in a middle-class town went viral.

Steph Atkin said the issue with homelessness in Warwickshire's Leamington Spa was "a stark reminder of the poverty that scars (its) over made-up visage".

Posting last month she said there was another side to Leamington life other than the "regency jewel in the very heart of England".

Steph detailed how she had met a homeless man called 'Steve' who was "covered from head to foot by a filthy duvet", squeezing himself into a doorway among a tower of plastic bags.

The qualified tyre fitter has been living on the streets on and off since he was a teenager, but "family and then relationship breakdowns led him to this doorway".

She said the father-of-one "would love to work, but no one will give him a job as he has no fixed abode".

(Image: iStockphoto)

He is on the council list for emergency accommodation, and has been marked down as a priority but he has been waiting for a year.

He also only occasionally gets to see his daughter as she finds it very hard to see him on the streets.

Yet since the post was shared thousands of times across the world there has been a huge response - and now the council has taken action.

The future of one of the town's homeless shelters - Leamington’s Winter Night Shelter (LWS) - has been made more secure after Warwick District Council were alerted to Steve's story.

The council announced it would assist in finding them a new home after it previously declared it had to move out its current building to make way for a series of new flats, reports the Coventry Telegraph.

The authority has since revealed that funding provision is available to allow the council owned, former Italian Club building to be used for homeless people subject to planning approval.

(Image: iStockphoto)

Steph later revealed that Steve was "delighted with the response so far and says thank you to all of you who have donated or had a chat with him today".

LWS, which was set up by two students from the University of Warwick in 2016 to provide food, shelter and company for the homeless on Friday and Saturday nights is currently based at the Priors Club, however uncertainty over the voluntary organisation’s future use of the Tower Street property had left them with the irony of potentially becoming homeless themselves.

Susan Rutherford and Jazz Singh, directors of the LWS Night Shelter have welcomed the support.

They said: “We are thrilled to have the support of Warwick District Council in making the old Italian Club the premises for our Night Shelter.

"Homelessness is a major issue in Leamington Spa, which is very much felt by the local community, and we are extremely pleased to be working together with WDC to tackle this issue. We thank them enormously for their generous financial contribution.”

(Image: Coventry Telegraph)

See Steph's post in full below:

There’s a lot I don’t understand. I just know it’s wrong.

Royal Leamington Spa . A regency jewel in the very heart of England.

Its wide white stuccoed Parade and neat streets house a mix of high street and independent shops.

It’s an affluent, middle-class sort of place on the outside.

We have an exceptional butcher’s with a royal warrant, a Farrow and Ball (of course) and a couple of weeks ago the town nearly burst with excitement at the opening of the upmarket Oliver Bonas store (known in my family as an “I Saw You Coming” shop).

But hey, if you can sell a candle for upwards of £35 then good luck to you.

But in the doorways near the over-priced, glossy artisan establishments, there is another side to Leamington life.

I work in the town centre. The route to my usual lunch provider takes me past a small doorway, an unused back entrance into one of the myriad of coffee shops which spatter the town.

In it sits a man. He is covered from head to foot by a filthy duvet, a small tower of plastic bags squashed into the small space with him.

(Image: Coventry Telegraph)

At first, I walk past quickly, averting my gaze and avoiding eye contact. He is an uncomfortable truth, a stark reminder of the poverty that scars Leamington’s over made-up visage.

Then one day, about two months ago, it was freezing. I mean really, properly freezing.

I sat in my usual lunchtime cafe, grabbing a hasty sandwich and a steaming Americano in my 30 minute break. My hands were so cold from the 5 minute walk from work to cafe, that I could barely hold the cup.

I thought of The Man in the Doorway. Conscience pricked, I bought a hot chocolate on my way back to work. I stopped at his doorway, his head just visible above his mound of bedding, and proffered my paltry offering.

He looked up, smiled, and thanked me. I muttered something trite, and walked quickly back to work feeling ashamed. And angry.

This pattern continued for the next few days. I wasn’t sure at first if the odd hot drink and a sandwich was simply a way of salving a guilty conscience. I felt sorry for him, but it was just too big a problem to face up to.

Then I started talking to The Man in The Doorway.

His name is “Steve” (not his real name). He has been living (if you can call it that) on the streets on and off since he was a teenager.

Family and then relationship breakdowns led him to this doorway. He is a fully qualified tyre fitter.

He would love to work, but no one will give him a job as he has no fixed abode.

(Image: Coventry Telegraph)

He has an 18 year old daughter who lives in one of the nearby villages.

She comes to see him occasionally, but it’s hard for her, says Steve, seeing her dad like this.

One day, I am on my way back to work, hot chocolate in hand, when I reach the doorway and he is not there. Just as I am about to leave my offering on the step by his bed, I hear him call my name.

He is sauntering back to his doorway from the corner of the car park opposite.

“Just been clearing up” he says cheerfully, and indicates the rubbish bin on the other side of the street.

I smile.

“How old are you Steve?”

“39”

He looks much younger, and I tell him so, which seems to delight him.

“When is the big 40”?

“August.”

It is then that I know what he is going to say next.

It’s 20th August, same day as me.

“No way man!” he says, and we laugh.

I ask him if there is anything else he needs, what more I can do:

“Just keep treating me like a human being” he replies.

Steve never begs, never asks for anything. He has no dog on a string, no cardboard sign, no begging bowl. He just sits. And waits.

He’s on the council list for emergency accommodation, and has been marked down as a priority. He has been waiting for a year.

We’ve chatted a fair bit over the last couple of months. I asked him what he does at night when it is really cold.

He’s told me that there is a night shelter, but it is only open on certain days, and it gets full. If he’s lucky he gets a place maybe a couple of times a month. If not, then it’s the doorway.

Frustrated and angry, I write to my MP.

Matt Western. Labour. I voted for him.

I write to him about Steve, telling him his story. I ask him for help.

It’s not a “Disgusted of Leamingon Spa” sort of email. I’m not naive, I know Steve is one of many in Leamington, and thousands across the county.

I know homelessness is a complex problem, I know each homeless person is unique and many have contributory drug, alcohol or mental health issues.

But I am angry.

Angry that I live in a society where the word Foodbank is in the dictionary.

Angry that our social service provision has been eroded steadily over the last two decades.

Angry that our benefit system is failing and inadequate. And angry that Steve has to sleep in a doorway in sub zero temperatures.

I receive an auto reply to my email, assuring me I should hear back within two weeks.

After three weeks I have heard nothing.

A post from Matt Western MP asking me to sign a petition to protest about a council redevelopment scheme appears on my Facebook timeline. Taking the opportunity, I ask him on Facebook to please reply to my email about homelessness.

To give him his due, I receive a response within the hour.

But it is standard, “we are doing all we can” platitudes, and directs me to some of the voluntary organisations for helping the homeless.

I decide I need to do more.

I talk to Steve about the lack of night shelters. He tells me about the Leamington Winter Shelter where he sometimes get a space.

“But they won’t be around much longer, they are losing their building” he tells me.

I find the website for the LWS, Back in 2015, two students from nearby Warwick University started a temporary service to house and feed the homeless during a particularly cold winter. It was only ever intended to be for a few weeks. Just over two years later, they are still here.

I see on their website they need donations of clothes and food.

Yesterday I went through our cupboards. We piled up hats and scarves and gloves, old coats, jumpers, fleeces and bagged them up to take down to the LWS. Then went to Tesco and bought rice, pasta, tinned food, biscuits, and wound my way to the shelter,

The Leamington Winter Shelter is on the wrong side of the tracks, quite literally.

It is in that no-mans land, south of the railway station, where Leamington’s regency splendour gives way to darker, decaying Victorian terraces. It sits among the kebab shops and taxi ranks and is not easy to find.

I follow a narrow path up from a dimly lit car park. It’s 6pm on a cold Staurday night. I’ve been told you can deposit donations between 6pm and 7pm, before the shelter opens for guests at 7.30pm.

As I approach the doorway, I can see 4 or 5 people in the dark, huddled under the only streetlight, already waiting for the doors to open.

I ring the bell, and a cheery man wearing a Superman Tshirt greets me. He leads me into a large room. It’s very warm and there is a slight fuggy smell, like a village hall jumble sale.

In the middle of the room are two large formica tables with seats around. Along the edge of the room there are various old sofas and mattresses. Boxes are arranged on a long table to one side with labels such as “Men’s coats” “Men’s shirts” or “hats and scarves”.

A tumble dryer is whirring gently in the backgound. There is a book case with a few well-thumbed paperbacks and some boxes of scrabble.

In the corner is a kitchen. I say “kitchen” but in reality it is what was once the bar area of what I assume was a Working Men’s Club.

Plastic fake wood clads the walls. There are two plug in electric hobs, the kind you might have in a caravan, There is an urn for hot water and a microwave. And that is it.

From this, Chris – a 60 something gentleman who proudly tells me he spends £25 a week on consumables, the rest comes from donations – oversees the cooking of hot meals for the 20 to 50 guests who come into the shelter every Friday and Saturday night.

I am astounded. I can barely manage to cook for two in my small but fully equipped kitchen. He turns out a choice of menu for twenty times that on two hot plates.

I ask him what he needs. “Washing powder” is his immediate response. “ I get through an average of 70 loads a week”.

As I chat to Chris, a woman from one of the local gastropubs come in with a vat of soup. Another brings tins and clothes.

Chris and his handful of volunteers cook for, entertain and wash the clothes and bedding of Leamington’s large homeless population. They rely entirely on donations, and get no money from the council. A lack of resources mean they can only open two nights a week.

At the moment, they are using the building of the old Leamington Priors Club while its owners go through the lengthy process of applying for planning permission to turn it into flats. But once permission is granted, they have to leave.

That means there will be no night shelter for Steve. Or any of those who need it.

Fortunately, Warwick District Council have earmarked a permanent building for the LWS, right in the centre of town.

I mention this fact to Chris – he must be pleased? He looks at me with a wry smile on his face.

“Yes, it will be great to have a permanent venue”. I sense there is a But coming. There is. And it’s a big one.

Unbelievably, the council will only let LWS have the building if they pay £60,000 to upgrade the facilities required for a night shelter.

I stare at him in disbelief.

I leave LWS feeling deflated and angrier than ever yet heartened by the kindness of the people I’ve met there.

I feel furious with the council. They are currently in the process of selling their perfectly adequate offices down by the river to developers. The plan is to turn them into luxury flats. The council in turn will build new offices for themselves on one of Leamington’s few precious town centre car parks.

Back home, I consult the council’s own 2017 Housing and Homeless Strategy, in which they make a formal commitment that all new developments of over 10 dwellings must comprise an “appropriate proportion” of social and affordable housing.

I then look at the plans for the site they have sold for luxury apartments. No social housing. No affordable homes. None. I can’t quite believe what I am seeing. The council has directly contravened its own policy.

I think of Steve as the temperatures drop again tonight. It’s Sunday, so the shelter won’t be open anyway and he faces another cold night in the doorway.

I think of Chris, a pensioner doing his best to care for the homeless, cooking meals on a camping stove.

And I think of the Council, selling off its offices at vast profit, contravening its own planning regulations, and asking an old man to stump up £60K to provide a service they themselves should be providing.

In 2017, Royal Leamington Spa was voted the happiest place to live in the UK .

I am not happy. And despite his unfailing good humour, I don’t suppose Steve is either.