ONE morning I got up at dawn and joined a team from the St Mungo’s charity who do outreach work with people sleeping rough in our city.

It was alarming to see just how many people there were.

When you accept just how brutal life on the streets is, and just how vulnerable rough sleepers are, it makes my blood boil at the rise in homelessness that we’re seeing once again.

Thanks to the central government cuts to community services, charities, and frontline public services, too many people are no longer caught in the safety net of our welfare state and end up out of work, out on the streets, and exposed to terrible indignity and dangers that no-one should have to face.

Soon the government will make it even harder for rough sleepers to make the journey into secure accommodation, because they are about to reform the Local Housing Allowance.

It will mean that many homeless people who commit to a pathway into supported living will not be able to have enough government funding to cover the costs. And, you guessed it, due to cuts to local council grants and to frontline charities, there is no other money in the system to subsidise it.

That’s why we’ve seen local hostels shutting down right at the time when the numbers of people needing them are going up.

I want to be a better advocate for those caught in this terrible, dangerous, and heartbreaking situation.

I’ll be working closely with St Mungo’s, Off The Fence, First Base and other brilliant charities to see how I can make that happen.