Bob Geldof and John Cleese join Sleep in the Park event for homeless

More than 8,000 people will brave freezing temperatures to sleep outside in Princes Street Gardens in Edinburgh on Saturday night with the ambition of ending homelessness in Scotland.

Billed as the world’s largest sleep-out, Sleep in the Park is coordinated by the Scottish social enterprise Social Bite, which has previously attracted celebrity support from George Clooney and Leonardo DiCaprio.

The rough sleeping event will be hosted by the comedian Rob Brydon, with bedtime stories read by John Cleese and busking sets from Liam Gallagher, Deacon Blue and Amy Macdonald.

Participants – who will include Bob Geldof and Scotland’s deputy first minister, John Swinney – have committed to fundraise at least £100 each, with the final total expected to top £4m.

Social Bite’s co-founder Josh Littlejohn said ending homelessness in Scotland was an achievable goal. “The figures for core homelessness – rough sleepers, those in bed-and-breakfast accommodation, hostels or sofa surfing – are not insurmountable,” he said. “The total number of homeless households across Scotland is 11,000. It shouldn’t be beyond our combined wit.”

Scotland, which had almost eliminated homelessness after pioneering legislation passed by Holyrood in 2003, has recently experienced an increase in rough sleeping as welfare cuts have tipped more people into domestic insecurity.

Littlejohn said the key to change was no longer resources but focus. “This demographic is very easily ignored, so one of the main purposes of the event is to make them impossible to ignore.

“We know that the proven single most effective homelessness intervention ever is ‘housing first’, which basically means rather than making homeless people live through years of expensive temporary accommodation and rough sleeping, we provide access to a mainstream tenancy straight away and invest in a well-resourced support structure to support them in that tenancy. That’s the core change we are pressing for.”

On the eve of the event, two of Scotland’s largest housing providers, EdIndex and Wheatley Group, announced they would commit 475 properties to homeless people, with money raised by the sleep-out funding the support needed by individuals as they move into permanent accommodation. Littlejohn described the development as “game-changing”.

Founded in 2012, the Social Bite sandwich chain operates a “suspended” coffee and food programme – where customers can pay for a hot drink or food for a homeless person to have later. A quarter of its workforce were once homeless.

Clooney and DiCaprio drew cheering crowds when they accepted invitations to visit the social enterprise in 2015 and 2016 respectively.