This chef walks the streets of London serving piping hot lasagne to rough sleepers: 'We won't stop coming'
The Big Issue shadowed a grassroots project, Feeding Communities, as the team handed out hot meals to people facing homelessness on the streets of London. We were stopped by staff outside King's Cross station and they shooed us away. It comes as the government continues its drive to criminalise homelessness
Dean Collins, a professional chef who serves up hot meals to people sleeping rough and other vulnerable people across the UK. Image: Big Issue
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“I don’t know what we’re going to see tonight,” Raj Singh says as he briefs his team of volunteers for the night. “No idea. There are different moods and different levels of mental health that we’re going to encounter.”
It is 7pm and five of us gather in central London, just across the road from Euston railway station, alongside a trolley stacked with piping hot beef lasagne, vegetable curry, rice pudding and homemade jam, all freshly made by professional chef Dean Collins.
The pair walk the streets of the capital at night with a few volunteers and offer hot meals to homeless people who are sleeping rough.
Dean Collins serving up his piping hot lasagne to homeless people sleeping rough. They say “it smells just as good”. Image: Big Issue
It is a project run by Collins called Feeding Communities, which was set up during the pandemic and has provided tens of thousands of freshly-prepared meals and food parcels to vulnerable people across the UK, as part of the Thomas Franks Foundation.
“Our mantra is just turn up,” Singh, who is the director of the charity, says. “Even if we can help one person, that’s something, but of course it’s never just one person.”
Just minutes into our walk, an older woman is huddled in blankets on the steps of St Pancras Church, which is impressive in size and architecture but goes unnoticed by the rushing commuters. Singh approaches the woman gently while the rest of us hang back. They have met before and she accepts the meal with a smile.
Collins pushes the trolley at pace, chattering away to the volunteers. There is a lot to get through tonight. We are walking so quickly that we pass right by a homeless woman perched on a bus stop. Singh, who is slightly behind, notices her.
The woman’s clothes are worn, her hair matted, she has a few missing teeth, and she is staring at pedestrians instead of watching for a bus. But there are few signs that she is sleeping rough otherwise. She almost blends into the city. Homelessness, especially among women, is often hidden. People go where they feel safe.
Singh stops suddenly and asks if she would like a meal. She says little but nods fiercely. Collins is a few metres ahead at this point but grinds to a halt when Singh calls out ‘Chef!’ The woman almost runs to the trolly at the promise of a meal, which they load up.
“I’ve worked in charities all my life,” Singh explains. “Sometimes I see things other people can’t see. We’re just desensitised as a society.”
There are people who turn down the meal on our walk. Some have enough food, some aren’t hungry or just don’t want to talk. Others are ecstatic. Collins’s food looks and smells delicious: it is hearty comfort food which anyone would look forward to for their dinner.
Some people stop us in the streets and ask for a meal. They recognise Collins and Singh, who have been coming every fortnight for the last year. They fed people on Christmas Day and then on 2 January too, because Singh worried that people’s charity would have stopped by then.
“They all know us now,” Collins says. “That’s the beauty of it and we won’t stop coming.”
A young man comes over to us. He tells me he works in a school’s kitchen part time washing dishes. It’s just an hour each week but it’s something to keep himself busy and earn him a little cash, before he returns to the streets.
They load him up a tub of beef lasagne and, when we bump into him later, he asks if they have any more because he is so hungry. Every time anyone asks for more food, Singh and Collins are happy to provide. They’ve made more than enough.
The team are walking through the streets until well after the sun goes down. Image: Big Issue
Opposite Heal’s, a high-end furniture shop on Tottenham Court Road, there is a row of tents, a bookshelf stacked with files and a set-up that looks like it’s becoming increasingly permanent.
New statistics show that 4,118 people were sleeping rough between January and March this year. Half were on the streets for the first time.
Singh points out the spikes and bollards on London’s streets to stop people sleeping there – to make the capital a hostile environment for homeless people.
It is their dream to get a new vehicle which they can fill with much more food, and one day they’d like a golf car which they’ll call the Kindness Van, instead of the trolley which is 200kg and has already had its wheel replaced eight times.
The vehicle they’re currently looking at will cost £20,000. Each night probably costs them around £500 to cover the cost of food and fuel, but when I ask Collins how they are funded, he says it’s fairly limited.
There’s a donation page, but most of their support comes from the Thomas Franks catering company.
Lots of people ask us for tea. It’s an especially cold and windy April night. They don’t have but another grassroots group called Under One Sky are pushing a trolley of hot drinks along the same route. They will be here soon.
Singh (right) with Collins (left) and their volunteers, who work for a company which is catered by Thomas Franks, in the middle. Image: Big Issue
Singh was right in saying there will be surprises through the night. There is a moment when we find ourselves live on TikTok, a bright red phone in our faces, while handing out food to a large group of people who are chatting together and playing games. There is a community on the streets – a friendship and affinity, as well as the safety in numbers.
As we come back round heading back towards King’s Cross, we visit a hostel. Arsenal are winning the game which is on inside, to the disgruntlement of one man who tells us he’s a Tottenham fan, but the lasagne is enough to cheer him up: “Can’t wait!”
Proper, genuine gratefulness is repeated throughout the night. It’s not life-changing, but that hot meal gives people a little bit of joy. “I love this lasagne, it’s my favourite,” one man says, which earns him an extra helping.
Another tells the team: “Ah, you guys are the best. And it smells just as good.”
The beef lasagne was in high demand. Image: Big Issue
It’s not just happy exchanges. Some people are high, others hallucinating and traumatised. Sometimes people taste the food and it triggers memories of their childhood, others have been so long without a meal that the sugar makes them shake uncontrollably.
Tonight, the only altercation we face is from staff at King’s Cross station. We are outside the premises and offer a meal to a couple of men sleeping rough when two members of the station’s workforce shoo us away. “You can’t be here,” they said.
Singh and Collins are visibly shaken. This has never happened before. They cooperate and quickly move away, meaning those people have to go without the meal they were promised.
When I contacted Network Rail, they said they had no record of the incident and couldn’t say if the staff worked for them so declined to comment.
We saw mattresses tossed to the sides of roads, as well as rows of homeless people’s tents on the biggest London streets. Image: Big Issue
Singh tells me he believes instances like this happen because of government rhetoric – they tend to stay out of politics and just focus on helping people, but this time it has directly impacted their work.
The government is pushing forward the Criminal Justice Bill, which is set to criminalise homelessness with fines of up to £2,500 and prison terms for “nuisance rough sleeping”.
“It’s happening because of government legislation,” Singh says. “People think they’re heroes. They don’t realise that homelessness could happen to anyone – their friends, their families, their loved ones.”
We hand out a few more meals when walking back down the Euston road, towards the meeting point. We end quietly, both Singh and Collins trying not to show us how upset they are and keep the upbeat attitude they had earlier.
Collins loading up a meal for homeless people outside King’s Cross station. Image: Big Issue
This is a wonderful little project which is making a real difference. It shouldn’t take a two-man band to make sure people facing homelessness have a hot meal. They shouldn’t be on the streets at all. There should be the support to get a roof over their heads.
But with the government a long way off its pledge to end rough sleeping by 2024, projects like this are unfortunately vital.
And it will mean that more situations like this will happen and a tiny bit of good – a hot meal on a cold night or a tent to sleep in – will be snatched away from people in most need.
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