The tragic death of a homeless 35-year-old Portuguese former model is inflaming public opinion in the UK where the number of people living on the streets “has increased for seven consecutive years”.
For now, the dead man’s identity has not been revealed (see update below). Newspapers have described him as a Portuguese national who enjoyed singing and yoga and who was trying to get his life back on track.
His body was found at Westminster Underground Station at 7.15 on Valentine’s Day morning, and is being called a “wake-up call” by the city’s homeless charity The Connection at St Martin-in-the-Fields .
Cordelia Wise, for the charity, told the Guardian newspaper: “(He was) tall and elegant and striking in appearance. He was really determined – he believed in himself and his potential and was doing what he could to realise his ambitions”.
The Connection’s CEO Pam Orchard warned that the dead man was “likely to be one of dozens who would die homeless in London this year.
“We are very keen that people respect that this man was a real person, with strengths and talents who was also having a terrible time”, she said, adding that he was “one of a growing number of people dying on the streets, and that is very concerning”.
Here Expresso has focused on the reaction by Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn, whose staff regularly take food to the homeless people living at the station.
A spontaneous shrine set up at the spot where the man died has seen people leave cards, messages and bunches of flowers.
The card with flowers from Jeremy Corbyn read: “This should never have happened. As a country we must stop walking by. Rest in Peace”.
On Twitter, the Labour leader said “It’s time all MPs took up this challenge and properly housed everyone”.
This incredibly sad death at a time when temperatures are dropping below 0ºC at night preceded the publication of a report that shows that “the chances (for young adults) of owning a home in the UK have more than halved in 20 years”.
Salaries have failed dismally to keep up with rising property prices.
Says the CEO of The Connection, the rising numbers of people forced onto the streets can be ignored no longer. It needs “a comprehensive response”.
But whatever transpires will be much too late for the unnamed Portuguese national who only last week put his name forwards for a job as a waiter. He was apparently waiting for a reply to the application when he died.
This morning President of the Republic Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa lamented the man’s death in a note published on his official site, calling the circumstances “inhuman”.
Público adds that the dead national is understood to have come from Lisbon. Authorities now are trying to make contact with his relatives.
UPDATE:
Bizarrely, this story became suddenly much ‘darker’ the day after it broke, with a source for the Portuguese government telling Lusa that the unnamed national had been deported from the UK twice, in 2014 and 2016.
Portuguese media left the updates essentially at that, identifying the man by his first name (Marcos) and suggesting that contacting relatives was difficult as he was ‘registered’ to an address in Angola.
British media however labelled the dead man “a convicted pedophile” – muddying completely the initial message that appeared to be trying to draw attention to the intensifying plight of the homeless.
natasha.donn@algarveresident.com
