A WOMAN who gave a seemingly random homeless man some spare change was shocked to find it was one of her best friends from school.

Berni King was walking down Foregate Street with her two children when she came across her friend Rob, who she said has “gone from everything to nothing”.

The 50-year-old mum, from Droitwich, was going to catch a train home with children Amber, 16, and Dion, 12, when she heard a voice asking for spare change outside Sainsbury’s Local.

“I didn’t realise at first that this man asking for spare change was someone I knew,” she said.

“I went to get some money out because I have been homeless myself in the past – I know how it is.

“It was then that I realised who it was. I thought, no, it couldn’t be. I said: ‘Rob, is that you?’ I don’t think he recognised me straight away.”

She said: “I used to go to school with him – he was hardworking and had everything.”

Ms King said she spent around four months homeless a few years ago and was moved into a B&B by the council along with her children.

She believes Rob, who lived near her on The Westlands estate until a year or so ago was a couple of years above her when they attended Droitwich High School.

He told her he has been sleeping rough for a year after losing his job and house.

Ms King said Rob’s sister died last year, which she believes hit him hard, and when she asked: “Where are all your friends now?” he said: “They don’t want to know”.

She said Rob was popular and always positive when she knew him at school and when seeing him in The Westlands but was now “downtrodden” and in need of help.

The chance meeting happened at around 4pm on August 2 and Ms King told Rob he was welcome to stay at hers if he needed it.

She said he could come for a cup of tea or to stay over and he said he would.

However, having given him her mobile number, she said he hasn’t been in touch and when she returned to Worcester, she couldn’t find him.

“He has been at St Paul’s Hostel and down by the canal. I have been back round. I don’t think he has got any credit on his phone.”

She said seeing the way people looked down at Rob while she was talking to him, was upsetting – knowing that he is a hardworking and generous man.

She said: “I can’t understand why people find the homeless intimidating. It could be them. He has gone from everything to nothing in such a short time.”

Ms King, who also has another son who is 31, said Dion told her: “When he grows up he wants to open a place for all the homeless people to go.”

Last week, the government unveiled its new £100m strategy to tackle rough sleeping on England’s streets.

Housing Secretary James Brokenshire vowed to make homelessness a “thing of the past” and the government has vowed to end rough sleeping by 2027.

“help people turn their lives around”, including support for mental health and addictions.

As reported in the BBC, homelessness has been on the rise for the past seven years, with around 4,750 people estimated to be sleeping rough on any given night in England in 2017.

The Rough Sleeping Strategy is set to focus on preventing people from becoming homeless in the first place by offering a range of support.

Jonathan Sutton, who runs St Paul’s Hostel, attended a police raid at a homeless encampment off New Road last month.

Officers had obtained a dispersal order, after reports of a stabbing at the camp.

Referring to the homeless issue in the city, Mr Sutton said: “What’s the solution? The poor police are caught between a rock and a hard place.

“There’s more to it than homelessness, but it should motivate us to re-double our efforts and find a solution for this.

“There are complicated stories – it’s more than about what the public just see.

“It’s much more than people living in a tent – there’s more gone on with their lives that has led them to be here. The unravelling of that is the complicated and the hard bit for everybody. It’s not a choice to be homeless.”