Every local authority across the country takes part in the annual rough sleeper count at around the same time in November.
It’s literally a case of patrolling the area and counting the rough sleepers, while obviously offering them help and assistance.
Most will be known to the council outreach teams already from hundreds or even thousands of visits to see them.
And the reason for so many visits is that some rough sleepers cannot accept help, through no fault of their own.
Sadly, an addiction to the streets is a real life phenomenon. Efforts to help them will never end though, and the annual count shows exactly why that help is needed.
The 30 or so people taking part comprised officers and councillors from PCC, Light Project, CGL Aspire, Safer off the Streets, the prison service and others helping rough sleepers in Peterborough.
Lorna, the PCC rough sleeper outreach team manager, briefs us – we will be looking for people in or near mattresses or sleeping bags in the city, and can access help ourselves if we are upset by what we may see.
We assembled at the Salvation Army Church off Bourges Boulevard at 12.30am, before splitting into four teams to climb into minibuses and then patrol different areas of the city on foot.
The weather was helpful; slight rain but not too foggy and cold; no SWEP (Severe Weather Emergency Provision) launched at this point, but obviously we still would prefer to be inside.
The loop, of perhaps three to four miles, started and finished at the Garden House – heading to Asda, Bridge Street, Cathedral Square, Broadway, and the Cathedral grounds among other locations.
Each has at least one rough sleeper, sometimes more, and will be offered further help later that morning.
One would imagine that being woken up at 1am by ten people could be disconcerting, so at each location just two of the group would go forward while the others will hang back, asking if the sleeper is OK and/or in need of assistance.
In one car park alone were five people, two of whom were ‘new’ having arrived from London.
Teresa from the Garden House and Laura from PCC’s outreach team were the experienced duo who approached them to offer help, which was politely turned down.
Needles were present – it’s private land so little can be done - and it was also revealed that some of the men had recently left Off the Streets accommodation where drugs are understandably forbidden.
Some will not provide details of their background, or do not even wake up when approached; the snores of one person sleeping near Queensgate could be heard from a hundred yards away, with a radio blaring nearby.
The rough sleeper count works as a snapshot and some people won’t be seen, sleeping in new or uncovered locations.
Laura reveals that on one night she found herself on a 20-minute walk across a field to assess someone in the Hamptons, and on another given a map location via the What3words app.
But the Rough Sleeper Count is the best comparison tool we have as we return at 3am, for the count to be collated from the four different groups before submission to a central portal.
The full figures from the city and across the UK won’t be available until early next year, when all of the authorities will have provided their submissions.
We’ll then get an overview of whether the figures have improved.
The night provided a real snapshot of the diversity of the rough sleeper in Peterborough; young and old, male and female, sleeping in the dark or under streetlights, in buildings or in bushes.
Barring scooping them off the pavement there is nothing that can be done, and that is sad – but the city is doing its best.