Rough life out on the streets: Express & Star spend an evening with Wolverhampton Homeless Outreach

The comment is an eye-opener. On our two-and-a-half tour of the city centre streets, around half the rough sleepers we visit turn down our gifts of food because good-hearted passers-by have dropped off snacks during the day.

"The people of Wolverhampton are fantastic, really generous" says Craig, who looks about 20, with a ponytail on the crown of his shaved head. They may not all be hungry but on this bitterly cold February night - four deg C and falling - they are all cold. It is no night to be sleeping rough.

For the last eight months, the Homeless Outreach group has been bringing sleeping bags and warm clothes as well as food and hot drinks to the city centre's rough sleepers four nights a week - just upped to seven - after founder Becky Lynch launched a Facebook page looking for volunteers.

The police have been 'fairly active' of late handing out dispersal orders, requiring recipients to stay outside the ring road boundary for 48 hours, she says, so it's quiet tonight. Generally 15 - 18 people are sleeping rough on an average night, and there has been as many as 25. The number of people in Wolverhampton who are technically homeless is much higher, around 250, but they include sofa surfers, who depend on the hospitality of friends and family but who have no registered address so cannot claim benefits. It is not known how many people bed down in parks and other spots beyond the city centre.

For safety reasons, the outreach volunteers never go out in groups of fewer than four, and they need at least that number to carry all their kit which includes two large wheelie crates of food and hot drinks. There is plenty to go round. Greggs donate their end-of-day food, the Co-op in Stafford Street gives fruit, and Waitrose on Penn Road has also just come on board. The food and equipment is collected from two locations - a storage unit in Wednesbury and a garage in Castlecroft - before they set off.

The death of Hayley, a homeless woman found dead in a doorway in Queen Street in January, sparked an unprecedented glut of calls to the group. About 80 people called in the following couple of weeks offering help, many of whom have since either joined their ranks or become fundraisers.

The volunteers came across Hayley three or four times on their patrols. "She was in quite a poor state healthwise, I think she was insulin-dependent," says Becky, a ... year-old special needs teacher from Kingswinford. "We gave her food and drink and were starting to build a relationship with her. Her death was really sad but I'd be lying if I said I was shocked by it. The day-to-day grind of surviving on the streets is bad enough, let alone if you've got medical problems."

Unusually there is no one at the railway station bridge tonight but in Broad Street we find Mark and Tony who are hoping some kind clubbers will take pity and buy them hot chicken. But it's early yet and their eyes light up at the sight of the volunteers' crate of Greggs' finest.

Invited to help themselves, Mark politely declines. '"It wouldn't be right for me to do that," he says. Instead Dinky, a volunteer who is out for the first time with the group, selects pasties, Welsh cakes, hot cross buns, and crisps for the pair which are accepted with repeated thanks and 'God bless yous'.

Some of the goodies will be shared with Tony's 14-year-old Jack Russell, called Wiggy. While doing the rounds, Becky makes a note of any particular requests to pass on to the next team and tonight's handover report includes a a request for a dog's coat to be brought out the following night for Wiggy. Tony is thrilled to hear this.

He and Mark have moved down to this part of town to avoid a fellow rough sleeper who has threatened to stab Mark. 'There are a few that give us a bad name," he says.

The volunteers chat and banter with the down-and-outs. Dinky, aged 54, was herself once homeless. After falling out with her family, she lived for years under the arches at London's Victoria Station. At her lowest ebb, she was drinking several litres of vodka a week. The launch of The Big Issue changed her life. She became one of the first sellers, able to earn £50 - £60 a day, which helped to pay for a hostel place and eventually a deposit for a bedsit.

Becky initially helped for a few weeks at the Fireside homeless project in Birmingham but felt there was already plenty of provision in the city and that she could do greater good in Wolverhampton. Her roomy hatchback is permanently jammed with plastic bags. "I had to trade in my MX5," she quips. Tonight there are 150 pairs of gloves and hats donated by the Co-op, and a large bag of ladies' jeans.

Also in the group is 37-year-old Richard Aston from Willenhall, who like Dinky is out for the first time, and husband and wife team Jess and Evelyn Harper, both 62, from Albrighton, who bring donations from church groups in the village.

A detour is made to check on a spot where some weeks before the volunteers came across a sleeper called Al beside a mound of rubbish at the back of a restaurant near Waterloo Road, suffering what appeared to be a stroke. "It was raining heavily that night, his clothes and his duvet were absolutely drenched," says Becky. "We called an ambulance and I brought some clean clothes to the hospital for him."

The group no longer visits the the tented community in Cleveland Street since the hoardings that hid their existence were blown down in high winds last month.

At the House of Fraser entrance, Craig, Charlie and Jock eagerly accept offers of hot drinks. Craig asks for hot chocolate with a spoonful of coffee and says 'yes' to a golden-syrup flavoured porridge. "Can I be cheeky and have two?" he asks.

He enthuses about the kindness of strangers. "A group of around five black kids, aged about 13, came over the other day and asked me how I was. A few minutes later they came back with a cup of coffee and one of took off his hoodie, a really good one, and gave it to me."

He also tells of the time a man who had been drinking at Yates' Wine Lodge took him and Charlie to the Britannia Hotel and paid for three nights' bed and breakfast in a twin room. "It was over £300," says Craig. "He kind of indicated it wasn't going to leave a big dent in his bank balance but he still didn't have to do it."

Before we leave, Jock gives Becky an update on his unsuccessful attempts to find accommodation for himself and girlfriend Zoe, who is staying with a friend tonight. The paperwork and need to have an address for benefits purposes often defeats those on the streets. The Outreach group offers advice about housing, work and other issues they face. Becky tells Jock they may be able to help with a deposit. The group has built up a small fund but are careful about how they spend it. Recently they discovered that a number of heavy-duty sleeping bags they had given out were being sold on for cash and now they are more discerning about how they dole out such items. Jock asks us for books - he likes fantasy fiction and has recently finished an Andy McNab. We later find him in Victoria Street with his nose stuck in a science-fiction novel.

Moving up to Queen Square, we meet Taffy, weighed down by bags and bedding, walking purposefully towards the Nationwide shop doorway. "I can't stop, can you follow me?" he calls over his shoulder.

He accepts a hot drink and a good-quality sleeping bag and groundsheet. Wriggling into it, he shouts over to Craig who has now moved to the State of India bank doorway across the road. Charlie, too, has moved, choosing the entrance to Gilberts bookies, next to Yates. Sometimes they split up to maximise their profits, says Becky. Most of the rough sleepers know each other. "There's safety in numbers," says Taffy, who is currently having chemotherapy for prostate cancer. Becky fills his hot-water bottle from one of the hot water flasks. "Are you sure you can spare it?" he asks.

Stuart is swaddled in layers of clothes in the doorway of the tax office on the corner of the Ring Road and Darlington Street, his back turned. He does not want any supplies, he just wants to sleep. Beside him is a pristine rucksack given to him by the group the week before to help carry his belongings. Two full plastic bags are stacked by his head as a barrier against the cold. "Nothing thank you," he says without turning round. All the rough sleepers are unfailingly polite. The tax office is a favourite haunt of Stuart's but he is always packed up and gone long before employees turn up for work, although they know about their nocturnal visitor. At Christmas the staff have a whip-round and pay for him to stay in a hostel.

Nigel, camped on steps by the market, also declines any sustenance. Becky says he and Stuart will never leave the streets. They are there by choice.

Two weeks ago a 20-bed emergency night shelter opened its doors at The Church at Broad Street in Westley Street, to help tackle the city's growing homeless problem. The pilot scheme will run for four weeks and it is hoped it will be a permanent fixture next winter.

Since then, a claim by Wolverhampton councillor Steve Evans that many beggars were conning the public by pretending to be homeless - with one unnamed person raking in up to £300 a day - has kicked up a storm of controversy, making national headlines.

Kevin Staunton, manager of St Georges House Charity in Chapel Ash, which helps the destitute, disagreed with the view that most beggars in Wolverhampton were fraudsters.

But he addressed the dilemma that many well-meaning shoppers, workers and revellers face when they come across rough sleepers, insisting thet there was no real need to give money to homeless people.

He said: "These people are supported in Wolverhampton and if the public want to make a real difference, the best thing they can do is to give to charities like ourselves and others who can provide services for them and help to get to the root of the problem."