A Gravesend pastor is tackling homelessness head-on as a new winter shelter prepares to help get people off the streets.

Tom Griffiths, pastor of the City Praise Centre, has joined forces with Churches Together in Gravesham to provide Sanctuary Night Shelter in Milton Road.

Mr Griffiths, 46, says: “Getting off the streets is a real problem – it is like a downward spiral.

“Many have lost everything they possessed, and often have no bank account.

“With no bank account, or permanent address, finding a job becomes nearly impossible.

“The transient nature of their existence, coupled with the fact that they are periodically robbed of their meagre possessions, means they often lack the ID and paperwork they need to access the NHS or make a social security claim.

TOP STORIES: “With no network of friends or family, they often sink into despair and disappear off the radar, until they are either moved on or simply become a statistic in a pauper’s grave.”

The spiritual leader, who helped to create Sanctuary, added: “Some of these people are still trying to hold down a job – some are fleeing from abuse or domestic violence – while others have psychiatric disorders, or struggle with substance abuse.”

A Freedom of Information request submitted to Kent Police reveals that between April 2014 and October 2015, there were 1,589 incidents of begging, vagrancy and sleeping rough across the county.

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Tom and others at City Praise Centre are looking for Sanctuary volunteers this winter

There were 45 incidents in Dartford, five in Swanley, and 77 in Gravesend.

In the past 18 months, 18 of these incidents led to people across Kent receiving criminal charges – two of which stemmed from arrests at Dartford railway station in September 2014 and another at Harmer Street in Gravesend.

Mr Griffiths believes that homelessness in Gravesend is exacerbated by high housing costs and a lack of suitable accommodation.

His own experiences have shown him that such vulnerable people survive by either sleeping rough in doorways and bushes, “camping” in their cars overnight, or by sofa-surfing.

Mr Griffiths says: “As a church, we started asking, ‘As Christians, how can we worship a homeless man on a Sunday and ignore him on a Monday?’ “This year, my wife Jo and I had our eyes opened wide to the terrible need of the homeless when we discovered a Slovakian girl sleeping rough in a doorway in Gravesend.

“We visited her, taking food and blankets and listened to her heartbreaking story of human trafficking and personal despair.” The shelter, located inside Gravesend Methodist Church, will be open three days a week on Sundays, Tuesdays and Thursdays from 6pm to 9am from December until March next year.

For information about the shelter, or to volunteer, visit gravesendchurchestogether.org.