There are already more than 50 people at Birmingham's largest drop-in centre for the homeless within 15 minutes of its doors opening on the morning of Wednesday, 18 September 2019. The large, hanger-like structure of the centre – formerly a taxicab depot – occupies an industrial no-man’s-land in Digbeth. It is located between the coach station, handy for new arrivals with no fixed abode, and the Custard Factory built by Alfred Bird in 1902 and now a hub for the creative industries.

The centre, known as SIFA Fireside, is within walking distance of the city centre: close, but not close enough for its unruly clientele to scare off shoppers and office workers. Its unwieldy name derives from the union of two charities in 2007: SIFA (Supporting Independence From Alcohol), set up to help street drinkers in Moseley; and The Fireside, a place of respite near the centre set up by two Catholic nuns to cater for the same marginalised group.

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We are here to shadow Habib Ullah, a solicitor specialising in welfare benefits from Birmingham Community Law Centre who runs a weekly drop-in clinic. The number of homeless people in Birmingham has tripled over the past few years. Around the time of our visit, the housing charity Shelter estimates that one in every 66 people resident in the city is homeless.

One in every 200 people across England is without a home. The London borough of Newham tops Shelter's list (one in 24), followed by Haringey, and Kensington and Chelsea (one in 29). Birmingham is the only city outside of the south-east of England in the top ten. SIFA Fireside typically sees more than 150 homeless people every day who rely on its soup kitchen. This reflects a huge rise in street homelessness – from 157 cases in 2010 to 3,479 seven years later.

The sharp end of the housing crisis

First up is Krzys, a Polish man in his mid-30s wearing a grey shellsuit and matching hoodie, with short-cropped hair and a closedtrimmed beard and moustache. A SIFA regular, Krzys speaks no English and so communicates with Habib Ullah via a Polish project worker, Angelina. About one third of the people who come to the drop-in centre hail from Central and Eastern Europe. Angelina seems to know most of the clients, including Krzys, who is cheerful despite the seemingly overwhelming problems he faces.