The homeless

This morning when I left home it was dark and bitterly cold. There was a thick frost covering the cars I passed on my way to the station and everybody, like me, was wrapped up in overcoats, scarf and gloves.

But I was still cold. The train doors regularly let in a blast of cold air as more passengers leapt in from the freezing platforms in the hope of warming up.

By the time I arrived in London my feet and hands were cold, the type of cold that stays with you, where it seems impossible to warm up and as I walked along the streets and over the Thames I regularly heard people commenting on how bitter the weather was.

Then, as I walked along the Strand I passed two, maybe three people huddled under sleeping bags and cardboard. Surely they had to be colder than me.

On the train in to London we passed several buildings that were empty, why weren't these people sleeping them? Money, someone will say, who's going to pay?

Last week I passed an office building just off Victoria Street where a business was paying money to change the paving slabs outside their office to angular bricks, specifically to discourage the homeless from sleeping there.

They were spending money to stop people sleeping outside their office. Why not actually find somewhere for them to sleep?

I have to be honest I don't think much about the homeless. I buy a Big Issue or give the seller some money but I don't think much about where they sleep and under what conditions.

The cold this morning was a jolt for me, in more than one sense.