Rough sleeping in London has increased 16% in the last year alone, according to Chain. Almost half of those doing so in 2014/15 were European, with 36% from central and eastern Europe and 10% from other EU countries. The proportion of British nationals among the capital’s homeless population has fallen over the past two years from 47% to 43%.
Many eastern Europeans they see are economic migrants, who come to Britain to work, but are unskilled or ill-prepared. Others are vulnerable individuals or victims of what Salva describes as “soft trafficking”, in which people have been coerced or misled into coming to Britain by the promise of employment. A third group, who come to the UK temporarily to send money back home, see living on the streets as a way of cutting costs.