Skip to main content
How hundreds were excluded from the Tories' ‘Everybody In’ scheme
On March 26 the government declared that every rough sleeper must be brought in off the streets. The call was hailed as a ‘landmark moment’ and an opportunity to eradicate homelessness once and for all. But why, two months later, are there still hundreds of people sleeping rough?
Homeless people queue for food

IN TRAFALGAR Square, the steps rising up to Nelson’s column are eerily empty. The usual groups of tourists scrambling on top of the bronze lions are nowhere to be seen. But around the National Portrait gallery it’s a different story.

Here dozens of homeless people are lounging on the grass, chatting and smoking in the morning sun. They are all waiting for food and water — necessities which have become incredibly difficult to find in lockdown London.

As I made my journey to the centre of the capital to speak with volunteers providing food for the homeless, I was shocked to see people huddled in closed shop fronts and passed out on deserted pavements. (I even saw a man wrapped in a sleeping bag just metres away from Parliament itself).

Entrenched homeless

Destitute migrants

New homeless

What’s next?

The 95th Anniversary Appeal
Support the Morning Star
You have reached the free limit.
Subscribe to continue reading.
More from this author
POLICING THE POLICE: GLC leader Ken Livingstone (centre), wi
Features / 10 March 2023
10 March 2023
In an exclusive investigation, BETHANY RIELLY looks at how the state targeted leading politicians and campaigning groups — labelling many well-known figures 'extremists' and 'subversives' for attempting to hold the police to account
Eritrean female soldiers
Features / 12 December 2022
12 December 2022
On September 4, 16 Eritrean asylum-seekers were arrested at a protest against their country’s dictatorship and its supporters here. Since then, questions have been raised about whether the British authorities are doing enough to protect activists and asylum-seekers from the ‘long arm’ of the regime in Asmara
Similar stories
A general view of the Sports Department at the University of St Andrews
Britain / 2 May 2025
2 May 2025
Shadow justice secretary Robert Jenrick. Photo: Lucy North/PA
Tory party / 23 April 2025
23 April 2025

Badenoch under pressure to sack shadow justice secretary