IN his letter (January 17), Matthew Clifton notes a welcome fall in the numbers of people rough sleeping in Bournemouth. I’d like to highlight some of the work that I’m particularly proud of as manager of the 16-strong local outreach team who work every day, in all weathers, to reduce the number of people sleeping rough in our community.

As well as supporting over 500 people to come off the streets in the last year, around half of our team have their own experiences of being homeless. St Mungo’s is committed to employing people with lived experience. They give my team a unique insight into the challenges that our clients are facing and gives us more opportunities to innovate and tailor our work to help people find a home for good. We are persistent. We recently helped a local man into accommodation who had been sleeping rough for 22 years. We never give up on anyone.

St Mungo’s is a big organisation, working across London and the South of England running around 350 projects, but our beliefs remain true to when we started 50 years ago as a small soup run in South London – that everyone deserves a home and the opportunity to fulfil their hopes and ambitions.

We are proud of our work in Bournemouth and our commitment to this community.

ANDREW TEALE, manager, Bournemouth and Poole rough sleeper team, St Mungo’s