Every year the Rangers Charity Foundation partners with Glasgow City Mission and the Simon Community to organise the Big Ibrox Sleep Out. The initiative has raised £240k since 2015 splitting funds between the three organisations. It’s a simple concept - spend a night outside voluntarily to raise money for those who don’t have the option. Up to 40 people at present are without even temporary housing in the city and many more are stuck in a vicious cycle of hostel accommodation that is not permanent.

As 50-or-so people dive into sleeping bags at Rangers' stadium, fighting off sub-zero temperature and a few enthusiastic snorers, everyone’s chances of sleeping are different. Just like their reasons for being here.

After a conversation with Leona, a fellow fundraiser, my optimism levels rise. This is her seventh Big Ibrox Sleep Out and on each occasion, sleep has proven to be relatively unbroken.

Then, Fiona, situated just to her left in the Rangers dugout brings me back down to earth. “This is my seventh year and I’ve never slept a wink”. Excellent.

(Image: newsquest)

Settling down for soup and sandwiches, Darryl tells me that he’s never missed a sleep out and this year family members have joined in.

The morning after his first sleep out and clutching a sleeping bag, he was asked to pay for his meal before eating at a restaurant.

After realising his phone was dead and trekking to a local bank for cash to get home, the manager of the branch presumed the front door had served as a night’s lodgings and shooed him away.

As a result, Darryl keeps fundraising and returning. Fighting homelessness is about fighting stigmas as well as sleeping conditions.

(Image: newsquest)

I am alarmed at another sleeper, John’s, lack of apparent warmth as my teammate treks out of the tunnel wearing just a tracksuit. It doesn’t seem to put him off and the next morning, John assures me he was too warm if anything. I on the other hand was most definitely not.

The point in something like the sleep out isn’t really the act, of course. No one braving freezing temperatures thinks their single night here will solve an issue that’s deep-rooted and entrenched, even if the funds raised have a material impact in the city.

But participating will do something. The fight against homelessness and addiction is driven by charities on the ground and volunteers, not government initiatives that have so regularly failed in Scotland.

The Simon Community has declared a ‘people emergency’ because even though everyone is entitled to a bed in the city, there are just not enough this year. The lack of permanent homes clogs up temporary options. More than 40,000 homelessness applications have been made over the 2023-24 period, an increase of over 1000 compared to 2022-23, and the highest since 2011-12. On 31 March 2024, 16330 households were living in temporary accommodation, a figure which is 9% higher than the previous year.

(Image: newsquest) (Image: newsquest)

Murray Easton from Simon Community tells me: “We’re seeing a real desperate need in people looking for advice, basic life essentials like food and sleeping bags. We’re also getting many people coming to us for the first time who you’d think might not need help but in Glasgow you have 20 people going for every rental accommodation. There is not enough to go around. Many are sofa-surfing, they are not roofless but don’t have a home.”

For the last 14 years, Glasgow City Mission has run a night shelter and overnight welcome centre. This year they’re changing model purely because they believe effort and energy is better spent trying to solve the root of the problem - an avenue into permanent accommodation.

“We want to adapt to the needs of the city which have continuously changed, we need to provide a service that meets the need in Glasgow,” says Elyse MacKinnon from Glasgow City Mission.

“1400 people are stuck in temporary accommodation which is unacceptably high. To meet this challenge we’re increasing housing support to move as many people out of temporary accommodation and into settled housing.

“Long-term solutions decrease the need for emergencies which will increase capacity for those who urgently need temporary accommodation - rough sleepers. A vicious cycle of a lack of permanent options can keep people trapped in temporary accommodation. We want people to move from hostels to homes.”

(Image: newsquest)

A conversation with two other participants, Stevie and Martin, reminds me of the fact that most who end up on the streets, whether short or long-term, can be afforded little planning time. There’s no conversation with spouses about the number of layers worn and you don’t get a breakfast roll upon waking. As another sleeper puts it, pointing up the the Ibrox main stand, “This isn’t really roughing it, is it?”

Vicki tells me she’s here raising money and awareness because “The way life is, most of us are not far away from being in that situation ourselves. You can’t take it for granted.”