He is the man given the job of rescuing Britain’s rough sleepers – delivering the Tories’ pledge to end the homelessness crisis by 2024.
Yet on the streets of Eddie Hughes’s own constituency, there are estimated to be more people living rough now than when that manifesto promise was made two years ago.
And Mr Hughes is not the only top Tory struggling to bring hope to those let down by the Government.
In Camberley, Surrey – where Levelling Up Secretary Michael Gove is the local MP – campaigners say the picture on the streets is tragically similar.
As the cost of living crisis makes the situation increasingly desperate, charities are warning that rough sleeping must not slip down the priority list.
Volunteers in Mr Hughes’s Walsall North constituency say they have seen a spike, driven first by instability in the pandemic and now fuelled by price rises.
Charity worker Louisa Langford told the Sunday Mirror: “There are more people now needing help than at any point I can remember.
“The Tories say they are committed to ending rough sleeping – but if you look around Walsall, it’s clear that they don’t give a hoot.”
Louisa works full time in a hair salon but for the past six years has given up every spare moment to head up a group known as The Homeless Angels.
It relies solely on volunteers – Louisa, 52, has been unable to attract a penny in Government or council funding.
She said: “We do this off our own bats because we see how bad it is.
“Everything we do is from the kind donations of locals. The council and the MP haven’t given us anything.
“We’ve been promised, but it’s never landed. Mr Hughes told me he was going to find money, he was going to do this, do that. But he’s not come up with a penny for what I do for these lads.”
According to Government statistics, the estimated number of people counted sleeping rough in England on a single autumn night in 2010 was 1,768.
By 2017, after seven years in which the Tories were in charge throughout, that had soared by 169% to 4,751.
In 2020, the Government’s Everyone In project found hotel rooms for 37,000 homeless people in the first eight months of the pandemic – reckoned to have saved hundreds of lives.
But funding was pulled after less than a year and, in 2021, more than 1,200 people across the whole UK died while homeless – up 32% on the previous year.
Of the one in five where cause of death was confirmed, 41% were linked to drug and alcohol use, and 12% to suicide.
By last autumn, a one-night snapshot showed 2,440 sleeping rough in England.
But the volunteers on the ground claim those figures are not even close.
For the whole Metropolitan Borough of Walsall, covering three constituencies, the official number of rough sleepers on any night is less than five. Says Louisa: “It’s nonsense.
“I could take you to a house by the train station that’s boarded up – there are five people there alone. They’ve said for years there’s no rough sleeping problem in Walsall. It’s not true. There are disused factories being used as shelters. Only last week a poor chap’s body was found in one.”
Mr Hughes, who won the seat from Labour in 2017, should know the scale of the problem better than most.
Now the Minister for Rough Sleeping, before becoming an MP he headed up a charity providing accommodation to young people in and around Walsall.
Dad-of-one Martin Garn, 42, has spent time on the streets since a relationship breakdown during the first lockdown. He said: “It’s a massive problem here and it’s getting worse. You only have to walk around to see people on pretty much every street corner.
“It’s ironic the minister for rough sleeping is the MP. He ain’t doing a very good job at it.”
Wayne Price, 43, spent six years on the streets after a bereavement. He found shelter in bus stops, bin sheds, bushes and old cars before being helped by Louisa this year.
And he estimates up to 100 people a night still sleep rough in the town. Wayne said: “It’s a big problem but if you don’t look, it’s easier to ignore.”
Thomas Harrison, 41, has been sleeping on the streets on and off while battling a drug addiction.
He told how some rough sleepers even see crime as “an incentive” – offering the hope of going to prison, where they can be looked after.
Last month, local Tories told how former rough sleepers in the West Midlands had “praised a pilot scheme aimed at tackling homelessness for helping them turn their lives around”.
Andy Street, the West Midlands Conservative mayor, said the £9.6million pilot helped 515 people off the streets, including 102 in Walsall. Despite that, funding for the project is yet to be agreed beyond next March.
Meanwhile in the Surrey Heath constituency of Levelling Up and Housing Secretary Mr Gove, homes are increasingly out of reach.
The average monthly rent of a one-bedroom flat in Camberley is £965, while housing benefit for the area is only £700.50 a month.
Those out of work must top up their rent from £324.84 universal credit, leaving only £60 for food and bills for a month – just £2 a day.
Charlene Edmeades, 40, a former brickie, has been on and off the street since she was 16. She said: “I’ve been a victim of circumstance due to exes and the situations they’ve put me in.
“You feel very vulnerable out on the street… and lonely. Very lonely.” With help from charity The Hope Hub, Charlene is currently in temporary accommodation.
She said: “Everything I’m applying for, they’re saying because of the cost of living I won’t be able to afford it. I’d say to Boris [Johnson] or Michael Gove to come and spend 12 hours on the street and see if they can handle it. We’ll swap places.
“Until they’ve been through it themselves I don’t think they have a clue.”
Mr Gove himself also lives in supported accommodation – a £25million grace-and-favour home in Westminster funded by the taxpayer, with two dining rooms and a ballroom.
Another of his constituents, former factory foreman Karl Bergmann, 50, lost his home in 2008 when the recession cost him his job.
Homeless for over a decade, he is now in supported accommodation.
He said: “I’ve slept rough in −13C. I thought about going to the hospital but I didn’t want to bother them so I slept in a 24-hour toilet. It was horrible but at least I could shut the door.”
Now he fears many more will soon take his place on the streets. Karl said: “ Universal Credit should be different in different parts of the country – some places are cheaper to live.
Mags Mercer, CEO of The Hope Hub, said: “Throughout the pandemic we’ve seen a downward spiral in the mental health of homeless and vulnerable people, and their ability to cope with extra pressure on their pockets and living with uncertainty.”
A Government spokesman said: “Our commitment to ending rough sleeping by the end of this Parliament remains.
“Figures show the number of rough sleepers has fallen in every region of England to an eight-year low overall.
“We’ve given councils £2 billion over the next three years to build on the success of the Homelessness Reduction Act and to end rough sleeping.”
But homeless charity St Mungo’s said the Government still risks failure. Chief executive Steve Douglas said: “Michael Gove has a huge brief but this mustn’t slip from his priority list.”
