It’s another bitterly cold night in this frozen corner of East Lancashire.
And as the rain hammers down Mohammed Razaq weeps openly at the thought of another night sleeping on the icy streets – and begs me to do something, anything to help him.
Despite being registered disabled and blind in one eye, the 49-year-old has been sleeping rough since splitting with his wife 18 months ago.
Tonight Mohammed, who uses a white stick, says he’ll struggle to find somewhere to keep dry.
Gripping my hand, tears stream down his face as he says: “Why won’t anyone help me? How have I ended up like this? I need help. I need help.”
Mohammed was living in London but came back to his home town of Blackburn to try and re-settle after his relationship breakdown.
But the former Eddie Stobart lorry driver struggled to find work and a home, so for now he’s sleeping in the town centre.
In a few hours he’ll try and bed down in the Northgate shopping district – just yards from where another rough sleeper, Andy Davie, died a few weeks ago.
Wrapped in a parka and Burnley Football Club bobble hat, Mohammed says, “I don’t feel safe, you never feel safe. What can I do?”
Andy – a cheerful character known for busking on his ukulele – was just 39 when he was found dead in his sleeping bag outside a Boots doorway.
Like Mohammed he had been one of the 90 or so regulars at Community Spirit, a soup kitchen and outreach service run by volunteers.
As co-founder and trustee, Neil Mistry, 26, explains Andy’s death has affected everyone – but sadly it isn’t the first time they have lost a friend.
Speaking during the busy Tuesday night food service, he says: “We knew Andy, he was a really chirpy character. A lovely guy.
“To hear that someone has died like that, alone, on the street, is terrible for us all.
“He had been poorly and being on the street meant he couldn’t recover.
“It’s a tragedy.
“We know a lot of the people here and when people don’t appear for a while you worry, because the worst can happen – especially during winter.
“If you’re sleeping in wet conditions, in wet clothes, you can get hypothermia.
“That’s what happened to Thomas, a Polish chap who came here.
“He came here a lot, he was someone we all knew well.
“He slept under the bridge and worked in a car wash and I guess couldn’t get dry so he was sleeping in wet clothes and he froze.
“Deaths like his are preventable, they shouldn’t be happening.”
Neil, an operations manager in an insolvency practitioner, has been doing his best to provide help and support here for more than five years.
He started off handing out food and warm clothes from the back of his old fishing van.
As demand grew he moved into a donated VW van and the methodist church community centre.
Now he and his team of 20-plus volunteers staff a weekly soup kitchen, handing out hot food and drinks donated by local restaurants, supermarkets and benefactors, and driving around to check on rough sleepers across town.
Neil is under no illusions why more and more people have nowhere to go.
“Austerity and Universal Credit have been an absolute catastrophe for people here,” he says.
“I meet people all the time, a lot of younger lads at the moment, who are homeless because of Universal Credit.
“They might have been renting but having to wait six or eight weeks for the money meant they get into arrears and the landlord kicks them out.
“Other people have been sanctioned so what can they do? Or they are in work but it’s low paid.
“People are sleeping in alcoves, under bridges, behind bins. Everywhere you see bodies shivering.
“We do our best to help people stay safe and warm and then offer support.
“We don’t just give food to takeaway. We want people to come and socialise, to connect and access support if they can.”
Debbie Miller is another volunteer. The 50-year-old childminder says working here has opened her eyes.
“I’ll happily admit I was one of those people who believed the myths about homeless people,” she says.
“I thought people were wasters, losers, then I’ve come here and realised how wrong I was.
“This can happen to anyone. We have all kinds of people in here, families, people who’ve been sofa surfing then chucked out, people on Universal Credit.
"I’ve met a company director who had it all and lost it all, people who have just had bad luck and it’s humbling because none of us are immune.
“People don’t stop being people because they are homeless. It’s very easy to think there’s a ‘them and an us’ but there really isn’t.
“Everyone deserves their dignity. We’re not here to judge, we’re here to care.”
One of those working to help visitors feel human is hairdresser, Lorraine Hargreaves, 57.
She runs a nearby salon and pops in every Tuesday to give haircuts to anyone who needs one.
Setting out her clippers, mirrors and beard trimmers, she explains: “It’s important that people feel human and getting your haircut helps you do that doesn’t it?”
“It’s quite an intimate thing really and for the ten minutes someone is in that chair we get to really chat.
“People always tell me their name, they’ll sit down and say, ‘I’m George’ so I can use their name because that might not happen to them a lot.
“I hear a lot of heartbreaking things in that chair but there are some great moments too.
“So last week I did someone a haircut because he had an interview and wanted to look smart and he got it.
“How you look makes a difference to how you feel about yourself.”
Tonight Kevin Melody is in the chair, getting a short back and sides. He’s struggled with heroin addiction for much of his adult life and served time for drug related offences.
At 47 he’s been to rehab and is now taking a heroin substitute while trying to rebuild his life and a relationship with his three children and two grandchildren.
Finding a home is the next step – but he doesn’t hold out much hope of getting one anytime soon.
“I’m staying in a hostel but really it’s an asylum,” he says grimly.
“It’s chaotic, a mad house, all sorts goes in there but it’s either that or the streets so I don’t have a choice right now.”
When the hot food service is finished the team heads out into town – to take hot food and drinks and dry clothes to those who haven’t made it to the soup kitchen.
They’re hoping to find Lorraine, a homeless woman and poet who writes about her life, sleeping in a Morrison’s car park.
One of her friends, ‘Ginge’, 20 is here. He had hoped to make a home in a squat – ‘it was alright, nice, clean’ – but the landlord has just changed the locks so he’ll be bedding down here for the night instead.
It’s cold and damp but as warms his hands on a hot chocolate and swaps his wet coat for a dry one he tells me matter-of-factly, ‘I’ve slept here loads of times. I know people here. It’s probably safe. I haven’t got any other plans. I’ll be alright.”
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