ALMOST 100 more people are sleeping rough in Croydon than last year, in what a leading charity has described as a "massive" increase in street homelessness.
Outreach teams saw 134 sleeping rough in 2012/13, up from 42 in 2011/12 – the second largest increase of any London borough.
The average number of people seen at charity Nightwatch's nightly drop-in at Queen's Gardens, opposite Taberner House, has risen from 60 to 90 in the last 12 months.
"There has been a massive increase in people sleeping rough," chairman Jad Adams told the Advertiser.
"Two weeks ago on a night when I myself was out we saw 97 homeless and vulnerable people.
"We are facing the dismal prospect of the first time in the life of our charity of seeing 100 people in a single night.
"It is a record Nightwatch does not want."
Figures released today (Thursday) by the Combined Homelessness and Information Network estimate that 6,437 people slept rough in London in 2012/13, a 62 per cent increase since 2010/11.
In Croydon the number of rough sleepers seen by outreach workers has risen in each of the last three years, from 25 in 2010/11 to 134 in 2012/13.
Only Lambeth has seen a larger increase than Croydon between April 2012 and March 2013.
Writing in Nightwatch's annual report, published last night, Mr Adams said the "trend is upwards".
"The causes are twofold: the large number of east Europeans, who now make up half of our client group; and a general impoverishment of society," he explained.
"The east Europeans may be sleeping in garages and other unsanitary accommodation.
"More still are living in overcrowded conditions; one woman said she was cooking for twelve men."
The potentially tragic consequences of sleeping rough were demonstrated when a fire in the former Sea Cadets headquarters near Croydon flyover last Monday led to the death of a Polish man who had been squatting in the derelict building.
Nightwatch itself was founded in 1976 in response to the death of James Keating from exposure while sleeping on a park bench in Thornton Heath.
Mr Adams said that the benefit cap, bedroom tax and changes to council tax benefits had made it difficult to estimate how much worse the problem will get.
"The challenge for us is that we are uncertain of what level need will reach in Croydon, so we don't know how to plan for the future," he explained.
"No one has been here before – the government and the council give advice but in the end they are in no better position than us to guess what will happen.
"We are trying to plan food supplies and volunteer numbers for an uncertain future."
Crisis, a charity representing the single homeless, called on Mayor of London Boris Johnson to take action.
Leslie Morphy, chief executive, said: "He has the power to build tens of thousands more genuinely affordable homes and can protect services that prevent and solve homelessness, plus the clout to influence central government to reverse housing benefit cuts that have proved so damaging and are directly causing Londoners to fall into homelessness and rough sleeping.
"Continuing to fail to do so will lead to more of his citizens facing the horrors of life on the streets. "
Figures released by the Department for Communities and Local Government last week showed that statutory homelessness in Croydon had reached an eight year high.
Some 912 families were declared homeless during the last financial year, the highest figure since 2004/05.
