Just look, and there they are. In cities and in towns, a growing number of rough sleepers are living through another British winter; some of them will die in it. In rain and sleet and wind and long hours of darkness, in doorways, under bridges, down alleys, on benches (where bars have not been added to prevent them), in makeshift tents (if these have not been removed by authorities), in sleeping bags, with dogs for protection and companionship, with others sometimes, but mostly alone and lonely, never private but usually ignored, they are in our blind sight.

What we often do not see are the female rough sleepers. That doesn’t mean they’re not there. Street counts estimating that women account for 15%-20% of the total are almost certainly an underestimation. Women are the hidden homeless. Because they are so at risk on the streets, vulnerable to all kinds of cruelty and abuse, they tend to conceal themselves.

They ride night buses; walk through the small hours; sleep in disused cars; have “survival sex”, such as sex work or sofa surfing in return for sex; find places they cannot be seen. During the wet, raw December afternoon I spent with two women from the outreach team at St-Martin-in-the-Fields, I was shown where to look: under that plastic sheeting, say, spread across a pile of rubbish. A........

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