Street homelessness should be treated as a health problem rather than a housing issue, an MP has said.

Gravesham's Adam Holloway made the remarks during a debate on the subject held in the House of Commons yesterday.

The backbencher spent several months living on the streets of London, Birmingham and New York during the 1990s, working undercover for ITN and said since then "almost nothing has changed".

He said: "We still have the scandal of the people with the most difficulties in our society prowling the streets of our city.

"The untreated mentally ill, the drug addicted.

"It is my own experience that street homelessness is primarily a health issue, not a housing issue."

He recalled seeing a man "drinking from a puddle like a dog outside Charing Cross station", adding that he saw a "similar thing last year, it hasn't changed".

Last year he returned to the streets where he claims to have befriended an alcoholic called Andy who had his own flat but was "begging on the street" to "generate enough money to buy beer".

He also claimed a friend told him about a heroin addict sleeping rough in Covent Garden "who had his leg cut off eventually".

Mr Holloway said: "This guy absolutely maintains, and this is my experience too, that if the public were not so generous and didn’t enable people to buy the heroin and buy the alcohol then he would have got off the streets an awful, awful lot earlier."

"The reality is many people choose to be on the streets."

The MP also addressed the position in Gravesend, adding: "In my own constituency there are about a dozen rough sleepers, the majority of whom, according to the excellent Sanctuary homeless charity, are addicted to drugs or alcohol."

In fact, according to the homeless shelter's latest figures, they ended last year by registering 46 individual guests, and claim to have helped prevent 502 sleeps on the streets of the borough.

The charity saw a 33% increase in the number of guests looking for a bed and a meal with 158 on record last year (up from 118 in 2017/18).

Mr Holloway said people needed to "stop giving money to beggars".

The Tory is calling for ‘wet’ accommodation where people can take drugs and alcohol in a controlled environment, adding that this should be supported by "good, emergency psychiatric units".

"We need to be honest about this. When you give cash to a beggar, not in every case, but in the vast majority you are buying heroin, alcohol or zombie spice."

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