Rise in ‘pension age’ people seeking food aid in Fitzrovia

More than 200 people queue for food everyday at the Soup Kitchen in Whitfield Street, a public meeting at the American International Church has been told.

“We feed somewhere between 200 and 240 people a day,” said Alex Brown, director of the Soup Kitchen, reported the Camden New Journal.

Brown said that an increasing number of people they are feeding are of “pension age”. The Soup Kitchen feeds people, who are sleeping out on the streets as well as those who are housed but experiencing food poverty, from Monday to Saturday.

The meeting was organised by The Fitzrovia Partnership (TFP) business group and hosted by the American International Church on Tottenham Court Road on Tuesday 30 July to discuss the continuing increase in the number of people sleeping on the streets, and reports of a rise in incidents of anti-social behaviour in the neighbourhood.

At the meeting were representatives from Camden Council’s rough sleeping services team, the Metropolitan Police, the safer neighbourhood panel, and Councillor Rishi Madlani.

Mick Atkinson of TFP raised concerns about the condition of a large plane tree on Tottenham Court Road where a number of people are sleeping near.

A report by an Arboriculturist, commissioned by TFP, states “there is a risk of harm to the tent occupiers below the tree due to some deadwood and at least one broken and snagged branch within the tree crown; and that incipient signs of stress in the upper crown are due to the tents and activities of their occupiers”.

In an email to its members after the meeting, Atkinson wrote: “The biggest take-home [from the meeting] was the power of community and a holistic, joined-up approach across all stakeholders is the way forward to finding solutions for rough sleeping.”

Atkinson says that “a working group will be put together to reconvene in September”.

Charity warns it is seeing rise in pension-age homeless — Camden New Journal.