Homeless 'should get £400,000,000 left on dormant Oyster cards'

£400 million pounds of unused Oyster card credit could be given to the homeless this Christmas, a London Mayoral candidate says.

Liberal Democrat Siobhan Benita is calling for the capital’s residents to be able to hand in ‘dormant’ cards, so the small amounts of cash left on them can be donated to help rough sleepers.

Transport for London (TfL) estimated at the end of September that it was sitting on £400 million in accounts not used for 12 months.

Now Ms Benita wants current mayor Sadiq Khan to enable Londoners to hand in their unwanted cards to benefit homeless charities.

Ms Benita, who last week spent a night sleeping on the streets to fundraise, is calling for the Mayor and Mike Brown, the Commissioner of TfL, to adopt her scheme over the festive period.

Claiming her ‘#OystersForChristmas campaign’ could ‘raise millions’ for homeless charities, she added: ‘I’m calling on the current Mayor to help us release that money.

‘If Sadiq Khan is serious about helping the thousands of people who are homeless or at risk of homelessness in London this Christmas, he could act now and do something which would have a real impact on vulnerable people’s lives over the festive period and beyond.’

Ms Benita, who says she would establish a new unit to address homelessness and rough sleeping if she wins next year, continued: ‘It’s shocking that the number of rough sleepers in London has surged to a record high, with around 22 new people now sleeping on the streets for the first time each day.

‘It’s shameful that London accounts for over a quarter of the total number of people sleeping rough in England. After nearly a full term as Mayor, Sadiq Khan’s rough sleeping strategy has clearly failed.’

An estimated two homeless people died every day in England and Wales in 2018, according to a shocking report released by the Office for National Statistics in October.

And earlier this month, another report on the rising homelessness crisis said a child becomes homeless every eight minutes in Britain.

Balbir Chatrik, Director of Policy at Centrepoint – a charity which would benefit from the scheme – said: ‘Instead of gathering dust, unused Oyster cards could help raise money for homeless young Londoners. Centrepoint would put this money to use by providing homeless young people with a safe place to live, while helping them to find a home and a job long-term.

‘Extra funding would allow us to expand our Helpline that young people can call for advice when faced with homelessness: 0808 800 0661.’

TfL’s Chief Technology Officer, Shashi Verma, said: ‘Customers can already donate their old Oyster cards to the Railway Children via charity boxes at Heathrow Airport, Kings Cross and Liverpool St. Over the last decade, this has helped raise more than £218K for the Railway Children, an international children’s charity who work with street children in India, East Africa and the UK.

‘We are currently looking to expand the scheme with boxes at a number of additional sites across our network, as well as see whether there are additional options of allowing customer to donate to the Railway Children charity via Oyster refunds in the future.’

Ms Benita is facing competition from Labour incumbent Mr Khan, Conservative Shaun Bailey, Green leader Sian Berry, independent Rory Stewart and others in the May 7 vote.

Mr Khan’s office was contacted for comment.

This weekend, people across Britain took part in the Big Sleep Out, which saw around 60,000 worldwide participate in an initiative to raise money for homeless charities.