Rough sleeping hits hard on local high streets
Rough sleeping in England has reached record levels - with figures published on Thursday showing an annual rise of 15%, representing a 169% increase since 2010.
It's no longer confined to London and the big cities - three quarters are outside the capital - and rough sleepers have been appearing in tents and shop doorways in towns where it seems unexpected and out of place.
Tony, a 72-year-old former railway worker, is living in a small blue tent in a concrete underpass.
It gives him some shelter from the bitingly cold January wind blowing along Midsummer Boulevard, not far from families shopping in Milton Keynes.
It's not the kind of town where you'd expect to see clusters of homeless people, their tents and mattresses a few yards away from Costa coffee and Marks and Spencer.
It's the classic new town, a model of modern post-War optimism, laid out as neatly as a circuit board.
There aren't any books called Down and Out in Milton Keynes. But homelessness seems to be coming closer to home.
There are lines of tents in the underpasses, and a hut made of wood and bits of plastic is wedged under a road bridge.
Expensive rent
Tony, one of an estimated 130 rough sleepers in the middle of Milton Keynes, has been homeless for almost a year, saying he lost his flat after a problem over rent and benefits, which ended with the bailiffs on his doorstep.
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