One of the most damning things you can say about our country today is that the sight of people sleeping rough on the streets has become almost normalised.
When I speak to my parents, they tell me when they were younger, they just didn't see large numbers of people with sleeping bags on city streets, or in tents in doorways, that we have become uncomfortably accustomed to in modern times. Of course there were people who struggled or had fallen on hard times, but nothing like this.
It feels like this winter, everything has ramped up. Walk through Liverpool city centre at any point on any day and you will be see a devastating picture. Those working in homelessness support services in the city are all unequivocal when they tell me, this is the worst it has ever been.
READ MORE: Woman went to GP with back pain before being told 'nothing could be done'
READ MORE: Try Liverpool Echo Premium for 99p with no ads, fun puzzles and brilliant new features
The images of growing numbers of people sleeping in tents or on pieces of cardboard outside shops is a gut-wrenching one at any time of the year. In the winter it goes beyond that and becomes deeply dangerous.
Last week I joined the outreach team at the Whitechapel Centre on their morning shift as they visited everyone they could find was sleeping rough on the streets of the city centre. It was an eye-opening and heart-rending experience which you can read about here.
There was a palpable sense of concern amongst those I met about the falling temperatures we are now experiencing. When it gets close to, or below ,zero then the work of these outreach teams becomes less about checking in and more about keeping people alive.
Sadly last week we saw two cases where the worst fears of anyone who cares about those sleeping rough in this country were realised. In both Manchester and Nottingham, disastrous reports came through that homeless people had died in the freezing conditions.
It goes without saying that for this to happen in one of the world's richest countries is both a tragedy and a travesty. It is the most damning indictment of a government that has created so many problems and cut away so much support for those who find themselves in trouble.
Here in Liverpool we have a genuine homelessness emergency right now and yet we have heard absolutely nothing from the government about what it intends to do to help address it. The city council leader has twice written letters of increasing levels of distress to outline the severity of the problem and we still have no idea if those in Whitehall have even acknowledged this.
Any government should be judged on how it treats its most vulnerable people and, right now, this particular government is badly failing those who need help the most.
I and others have reported on the particular issue of the many, many refugees who have recently been awarded the right to remain in this country but have been given just days to leave their accommodation – forcing them into a state of destitution in the country they now call home.
There can be few more vulnerable groups in society than those who have fled war, torture and persecution and have arrived in a new land, worn down with the physical and mental scars of their trauma and now thrust onto the cold, wet streets to just try to survive.
As the winter cold snap continues to bite, there are real fears that we will see more deaths on the streets of this country, maybe in this city. The fact that the government appears to be indifferent to this growing crisis is a national disgrace.
The Liverpool Daily Post newsletter delves into the biggest stories on Merseyside.