Express & Star comment: What happens to the sheltered now?

They took people off the streets and gave them hotel rooms. They saved jobs that would otherwise have been lost. They protected society’s most vulnerable and did the right thing. Needing no cues from other parties, they stepped in to help those who needed it most, protecting jobs and putting health and welfare first.

That was just a few months ago, when rough sleepers found themselves no longer out in the cold but safe in the bosom of society, with bills paid and a roof over their head.

In a few short weeks that may change. Hotels are likely to reopen on July 4 – so what happens to the people who were homeless who’ve been staying there through Covid-19?

It seems impossible to think they will be kicked out into the streets, yet that is the most likely scenario. There is a chronic housing shortage and insufficient emergency placements to go around.

The question posed is one to us all. As a society, what do we think should happen to the most vulnerable and are we willing to foot the bill?

Should they be left to their own devices, to live and die on the streets, to have a lower-than-necessary life expectancy, to be exposed to the risk of violence, sexual exploitation and prejudice, or do we find a way to help them to help themselves?

Hopefully the experience of being sheltered and safe has given many of those who have been helped the chance to sort out issues that put them on the streets in first place.

Those issues are invariably complex and may involve personal trauma, the misuse of drugs and drink, mental illness, relationship breakdown and job losses.

Lockdown has shone a light on a problem that is too often swept under the carpet.

Society has been kinder, more patient, more self-aware during recent months and we must hope that such characteristics do not fade.

It is not enough to reduce such issues to a hashtag on social media. We have to be kind, rather than just talking about it. We have to find a solution.