'Nobody is sleeping in a graveyard as a lifestyle choice' says charity tackling homelessness on city streets

Yet in shop doorways, on pavements and in side streets, a growing number of people are forced to huddle in sleeping bags and blankets to keep warm against the icy temperatures - with nowhere else to go.

Scotland is in the middle of a housing emergency. The Scottish Government declared a national housing crisis earlier this year, along with 13 of the country’s 32 councils, including Edinburgh, as the number of homeless grows and average time spent in temporary accommodation lengthens.

With the human cost of the crisis visible on the streets of the capital, homelessness prevention charity Cyrenians have a team of outreach workers known as Navigators who stop to engage with those who have nowhere but the pavement to sleep on or spend their days.

“Our job is getting people help to access services. It’s to help get them off the street,” says Nick Harrold of the Homeless Navigators outreach project, who along with colleague Mark Diver, spends his days out on the streets among the city’s homeless population.

With approximately 13,302 counted as homeless this year - 3,814 in Edinburgh, 7,725 in Glasgow and 1,763 in Aberdeen - living in temporary accommodation and rough sleeping, the Navigators’ aim is to tackle the causes and consequences of homelessness by providing care and comfort on the street, day in day out.

“Homelessness, despite what some politicians might want to say, is not a lifestyle choice.” says Mr Harrold. “There are not very many people that I’ve met in over 20 years working in this field who have chosen it. Nobody is sleeping in a graveyard because it’s a lifestyle choice.”

“Homeless people and their needs don’t exist in a bubble - they’re part of society.”

Mr Harrold explains what he and Mr Diver do every day in the charity’s bid to prevent homelessness happening.

“Our goal is to get people to access the services they’re entitled to and to build relations. Five days a week, Monday to Friday, we are out, predominantly in the city centre and we walk the streets and engage with people who are sitting begging or rough sleeping.

“We respond to calls from businesses if they’re concerned about people that they see rough sleeping and we work quite closely with the community police based at the West End. Part of my job is interacting with businesses and I like that because it’s all the year and it’s almost like society forgets that homeless people exist alongside people that live and work in the city centre. The businesses are also stakeholders in our work.”

This year, The Scotsman is supporting Cyrenians’ Winter Appeal, with reader donations helping them offer care, community and hope to those who have been struggling for too long.

Typical of the people the Navigators meet is Claire (a composite of several real life experiences to preserve anonymity) who fled, scared for her safety, but found herself in more danger on the streets.

Invisible among the commuters, shoppers and tourists, she sought out vents of warm air, the shelter of shop doorways, anywhere that might offer some safety come night time.

Claire is on the waiting list for housing, but is not hopeful, as there are thousands like her waiting up to two years for a place.

Her story illustrates that homelessness is complex with multiple causes, including poverty, inequality, early years trauma, relationship breakdown and poor mental and physical health. According to Cyrenians, roughly 50 per cent of people who are homeless have at least one support need arising from the above issues and that while housing is desperately needed, it’s not the only thing that will help the problem.

With increasing numbers gravitating towards the capital, how many does Mr Harrold expect to see on the streets here in Edinburgh tonight?

“It’s hard to give exact figures because the population isn’t static and people don’t always sleep in the same places, but earlier this year we counted 42 people, and it’s on the increase, so the real figure is probably more than that.”

As for total homeless figures for the capital, Mr Harrold says there are many who don’t get included.

“A lot of people, given that there’s a knowledge that there isn’t a lot of accommodation available, are not even bothering to present for help. So while we say over 3,000, the actual number is probably much higher.”

When it comes to explaining the increase in the number of homeless people, Harrold says there are multiple factors.

“The cost of living crisis has definitely had an impact, the changes to legislation around foreign nationals after Brexit, and Edinburgh has declared a housing emergency because we literally do not have enough social housing available.”

Because the reasons for homelessness are complex, the Navigators work with multiple agencies.

“We do a lot of partnership work with other agencies and there are other homelessness organisations,” says Mr Harrold. “We try to be the mortar between the bricks to try and help people make their way through services, because people will have had negative experiences dealing with housing and social work and things like that. We might be the first services they have felt not ignored by. We work with people, not problems.”

Turning to what we can do to help, Mr Harrold has suggestions that vary from the pragmatic to the political.

“There are the practical things people need to sleep rough, but our priority is helping people move away from rough sleeping. I think to help we need pressure on local government and the Scottish government.”

He goes on to explain why Edinburgh is at the sharp end of the homeless crisis.

“It used to be that if you were a homeless person in Edinburgh, or Glasgow, that was where you got the service. They’ve removed this, which is brilliant because it means any Scottish person can get help anywhere in the country, but that hasn’t come along with an increase in the resources for Edinburgh and because we have so many more extra people coming from other parts of Britain, not just Scotland, the services are really creaking here.

“Temporary accommodation? You’re lucky if there are two or three beds available every day and they’re gone by half nine in the morning,” he says. “Plus some people are not allowed in - people with dogs for example, couples, and some people are nervous to take accommodation.”

And with temperatures plunging, rough sleeping can often be fatal.

“Coming up to winter there are more deaths,” says Mr Harrold.

So how will giving to Cyrenians’ Winter Appeal help in the fight against homelessness?

“Cyrenians, particularly the Navigators, are a very specific part of someone’s journey through homelessness,” says Harrold. “We are very much at the coal face, that hard end of it. But Cyrenians as an organisation looks at homelessness more holistically. We have projects more attuned to things like employability, helping people move on, helping younger people not fall into homelessness, preventative stuff, but also recovery work, helping people move away from addictions, and also volunteering opportunities.

“So, helping Cyrenians helps all of that. There’s a lot more to homelessness than the people you see begging on Princes Street.”

Donate to Cyrenians’ winter campaign here or by using the QR code above.