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Soup-er cooking contest spotlights Britain's homeless

by Max Baring & Adela Suliman

Soup kitchens have long been a lifeline for homeless people, but now one upmarket British supermarket chain is to raise funds for rough sleepers by selling warming broth in its stores.

Five finalists, from lawyers to farmers, gathered at the Waitrose cookery school on Tuesday with competing recipes for the new soup under the "Big Broth" initiative.

The winning entry, red pepper and chorizo, will be sold in Waitrose stores across Britain from September, with 20 pence (28 cents) from each sale going to the homeless charity Centrepoint.

"It's important because it's going to benefit the young and homeless people across the country," said Abdoulaziz, who was made homeless as a teenager after a family breakdown and helped by Centrepoint. He declined to give his full name.

"When they take home that soup, I want people to feel like they contributed to helping the youth and feel nice," he told the Thomson Reuters Foundation.

Government figures show homelessness has risen in England for seven consecutive years, with more than 1,000 people in London and more than 4,100 nationally sleeping on the streets, a 134 percent jump since 2010.

Another 78,000 families live in temporary accommodation as Britain struggles with a housing shortage due to a decline in homebuilding since the 1970s, government data shows.

Read the full story on: http://www.thisisplace.org/i/?id=45029a29-081f-499e-87e6-e2dc75d74992

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