Friends plan sleep-out to highlight homelessness in Dundee

youth-homeless-bannerA group of friends plan to spend a night sleeping rough to highlight homelessness in Dundee ahead of the general election.

Mark Parsons, a pharmacist from Broughty Ferry, has rounded up around 15 of his friends and acquaintances to take part in the initiative.

They will spend a night on the pavement in front of the Steeple Church on May 26.

Mark told The Courier: “The idea is to show solidarity with the homeless.

“With an election coming up, now is the time to highlight this issue and make out politicians take note and act.

“The life of the homeless in Dundee is something that I care about, it’s in my consciousness and I’ve done fundraising for that cause before.

“I don’t think enough is being done to combat the problem, not just in this city but across the country.

“I believe that society is measured by how it treats its most vulnerable members and in Dundee there are very high levels of poverty.

“It is mainly my friends and colleagues that are involved at the moment – we have nurses, doctors, consultants, all sorts of people – but we’d like to get as many people as possible on board and everyone is welcome.”

Mark Parsons made headlines last April when he cycled 3,300 miles from Dundee to Spain to raise £10,000 for Dundee homeless charity Parish Nursing.

He hopes that the turnout for his latest adventure will be good and that he can highlight the poverty problem in the city.

Mark added: “People can bring sleeping bags and mats, but no tents.

“If the weather gets really bad there is the option to go inside the Steeple Church corridor, but ideally we want to just sleep out under the sky and take whatever comes our way.

“We are hoping to get some third sector organisations on board too.”

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