Bloomsbury Central Baptist Church is struggling to support all those who need help (Picture: Getty/ Metro/Olivia Murrell)
A central London church where Martin Luther King Jr preached has said they are overwhelmed by the number of homeless people needing help.
Bloomsbury Central Baptist Church said rough sleeping in the capital is ‘out of control’ and ‘beyond anything the church can solve’.
Other churches and charities joined their call for more action and investment from City Hall to address the crisis.
Bloomsbury Central has teamed up with street artist Endless to erect a 7ft statue to highlight the scale of the problem.
Revd Dr Woodman (left) and Endless (right) have teamed to call for more action on homelessness (Picture: Olivia Murrell)
A record 210,000 Londoners are homeless and living in temporary accommodation, including an estimated 102,000 homeless children.
There are also record numbers of rough sleepers in the capital, at more than 13,000 as of July last year, according to Trust for London.
That represents a 400% increase compared to 2008/2009, despite City Hall’s budget for rough sleeping having gone up fivefold under Sadiq Khan.
Dr Simon Woodman, the minister at Minster of Bloomsbury, said there has been a ‘huge rise in people sleeping on the streets’ since Covid.
He told Metro: ‘I frequently find someone sleeping on the doorstep of the church.
‘We have people sleeping out the back of the church. It is constant in this area and is definitely getting worse.
‘This situation is getting out of control. It is too big.’
The 7ft statue has the 210,000 figure emblazoned on it (Picture: Olivia Murrell)
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The church has a long history of helping homeless people and let around 15 people sleep in their basement every night as part of Camden’s night shelter scheme, run by C4WS charity.
Revd Woodman said churches like Bloomsbury Central, where Martin Luther King Jr held his first sermon on British soil in 1961, are being overly relied upon by politicians to tackle rough sleeping.
He said: ‘Churches are the safety net. We are not the solution.
‘We need more action at a political level and wider systemic change in the way homelessness is addressed in London.’
In an effort to put pressure on those in power to act, he agreed to let street artist Endless to put up a new artwork on the church.
The artist’s installation features a life-size mural of a person experiencing homelessness and the large number ‘210,000’ representing the number of homeless in the capital.
Endless, whose work has been included in the permanent collection of the Uffizi Gallery in Florence, told Metro: ‘As a Londoner doing street art for 10 years, I have seen the increase in the homeless population.
A ‘tent city’ lines parts of Tottenham Court Road near Bloomsbury Central (Picture: Getty Images)
‘We need more people to notice the problem and the communicate about it.
‘Because the Church is in such a central position in London, we hope it will attract more eyes on the issues.’
Other charities and churches joined in calls for more to be done to tackle homelessness and rough sleeping in London.
The Connection at St Martin-in-the-Fields, which runs out of the iconic St Martin-in-the-Fields church in Trafalgar Square, said more investment was needed into key resources to support rough sleepers.
The charity’s CEO Pam Orchard told Metro: ‘We are sadly seeing increasing stories of hardship every single day at St Martin-in-the-Fields, here in the heart of the capital.
‘Until we see a substantial increase in investment in affordable and suitable social housing as well as mental health and addiction services, services like ours will continue to be used by the most vulnerable in our society.’
The number of rough sleepers have reached record highs in London(Picture: Getty Images)
In December 2025, Mayor Khan launched a new London Ending Homelessness Accelerator Programme, backed with £3.5m worth of investment.
The Robes Project, which supports people experiencing homelessness in Lambeth and Southwark, said the sector was also facing a 10% drop in donations.
‘We believe it takes a village to support someone out of homelessness, and that everyone has a part they can play,’ CEO Lisa Moodie added.
The Conservatives joined in the criticisms of how Sadiq Khan has handled homelessness and housebuilding in London.
Sir James Cleverly, the Shadow Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, said Labour’s record in the capital had been one of ‘failure’.
He added: ‘Things are especially bad in Labour-run London, where housebuilding has totally collapsed and Sadiq Khan is plumbing depths of failure not seen the Second World War.
‘This just means more competition for fewer homes.’
Sadiq Khan has pledged to eradicate homelessness by 2030 (Picture: Thomas Krych/Anadolu via Getty Images)
A spokesperson for the Mayor of London touted Mr Khan’s success at helping 20,000 people off London’s streets in his bid to eradicate rough sleeping by 2030.
The statement said: ‘The Mayor is clear that no one should have to sleep rough on our streets and every Londoner deserves a safe and secure home.
‘Sadiq is continuing to lead from the front in London and has supported nearly 20,000 people off the capital’s streets since he became Mayor in 2016.
‘This winter, the Mayor has funded new prevention programmes to help those in greatest need, building on the £10m investment he made last year – more than any Mayor – establishing a network of ending homelessness hubs covering the whole of the capital.
‘The Mayor remains committed to ending rough sleeping in London by 2030 but clearly there is still more to do and Sadiq will continue working closely with partners, the Government, councils, and experts to build a safer, fairer London for everyone.’
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