Ilford M&S to help build pop-up hostel for local rough sleepers

A Marks & Spencer store that was criticised for driving homeless people away with a high-pitched alarm has helped to launch a new initiative to tackle rough sleeping.

Last July the Guardian revealed that the Ilford, Essex, branch of M&S was using an alarm at intervals throughout the night to deter a group of people who had been regularly bedding down behind the store.

After the report M&S removed the alarm and pledged action to “help fund practical measures to support those affected”.

The manager of the store, James Mugford, said in a blog post that the call the company had received about the alarm from the Guardian was “one of my most difficult days”. He admitted that “having the alarm wasn’t right”.

Now M&S has helped to devise a radical plan to support rough sleepers in the area – a pop-up hostel in the form of 42 studio flats in shipping containers on land provided by Redbridge council.

M&S has got other organisations involved including Next, Debenhams, Metro Bank, the Salvation Army and the Refugee and Migrant Forum of Essex and London(Ramfel) charity to launch an initiative called #RedbridgeTogether.

M&S says it is the first time it has been involved in an initiative to tackle rough sleeping.

Mugford said one rough sleeper had been taken on for two weeks’ work experience. “He’s now working permanently in our store and doing a great job – we have two more people starting. The fact that in one of the world’s richest countries the average age a rough-sleeping man will die is 47 years old is just not OK.”

What is unusual about this initiative is that the 49 of the 65 rough sleepers counted in Redbridge are migrants with no recourse to public funds. But instead of handing them over to the Home Office for deportation, M&S and the other organisations involved in the project are offering them support to try to regularise their immigration status, access healthcare and find jobs. A planning application has been submitted for the pop-up hostel.

The migrant rough sleepers will receive immigration advice from Ramfel. Eight of the shipping containers will be reserved for migrants with no recourse to public funds.

The remaining studio flats will be rented back to the council to use to accommodate other homeless people. Instead of paying private landlords for B&B accommodation the council can use the money to provide support to break the rough-sleeping cycle.

John Clifton, the local Salvation Army captain, said that four rough sleepers in Redbridge had died on the streets since January of this year.

“We see the same rough sleepers coming to our winter night shelter each year. We want to end the deaths of rough sleepers on the streets and break the street homelessness cycle. If this model succeeds we want to replicate it in other parts of the country,” he said.

Paul, 25, a Lithuanian who had been sleeping rough for five years and was among those driven out by the M&S store’s alarm, welcomed the initiative. He said he had just found a job and was now renting a room.

“I think it’s brilliant. One of my worst fears when I was sleeping rough was that someone would come and kill me while I slept. That’s why we all slept in a group behind M&S – to try to stay safe.”