‘Soho could be called a haven for the homeless, I tentatively reckon’

• DOWN Soho way, there can be not a few homeless people.

Sometimes they congregate in Soho Square, sometimes in Old Compton Street.

At first sight it can be as if they are cruelly ignored. But such a view is not perceptive.

The reality is that they appear to be tolerated. Soho is a dizzy, dangerous, and at times sweet place, known as a reckless rebel outpost.

There are prostitutes at one corner, gays at another, agitators all over the place.

The homeless, with their begging and their tents, are almost one more feature of Soho’s odd, yet apparently gentle, diversity.

When I sketch in Soho, not very well, I have to sit down on the pavement. With my grey, ugly, wrinkled, face, I am soon viewed as a tramp. And I am offered a cup of coffee now and then.

Soho could be called a haven for the homeless, I tentatively reckon. As it is for other minorities.

ZEKRIA IBRAHIMI, W12