Winter sleep out will highlight plight of the homeless (From The Wiltshire Gazette and Herald)

Winter sleep out will highlight plight of the homeless

Peter Alberry of Threshold Housing Link Ref: 99981-57A SWINDON charity is offering the chance to experience life on the streets and raise money for a housing charity.

The sleep-out takes place on Friday, December 2 at the Immanuel Reformed Church car park in Upham Road and the Threshold Housing Link is hoping to find volunteers and sponsors for the event.

Peter Alberry, the charity's chairman, will be leading from the front when he participates for the fourth time.

Peter, 57, is not exactly looking forward to his night in a car park, but regards the sleepout as an important event.

He said: "Sleeping out is unbelievably awful. You wake up and you are so stiff you feel like you've been put through a mangle.

"But it's important for Threshold because we need money and it's important for the town because the council pretends we don't have a problem with rough sleepers but it's not true."

David Renard, Swindon Council's cabinet member for housing, said: "It's not that we pretend there are no rough sleepers in Swindon.

"Mr Alberry is probably referring to our count of rough sleepers in April when we found only one.

"The fact that we only found one meant we perform extremely well in comparison with other local authorities, but we wouldn't seek to deny there is a problem."

Threshold Housing Link hopes to raise around £10,000 from the sleep-out.

For an information and sponsor pack, or for more information, telephone 01793 524661.

To make a donation visit www.justgiving.com/thl/donate