Many of us have guests to stay over the Christmas break. We get out the best towels, check the bathroom is twinkly and make sure there’s a decent bed and some nice cereals for the morning.

How would we feel if our hospitality was stretched from putting up a relative to playing host to someone who is homeless?

Teams of kind-hearted people in and around our city make their spare rooms available for those who would otherwise be sleeping in a Bradford doorway.

Hope Housing runs a hosting project linking homeless people with those ready to offer a bed for a night or two. The team then beaver away to find a long-term solution where they can.

In the charity’s first year, it has saved 73 people from sleeping rough for a total of 137 nights – quite different from recent official statistics by the Department for Communities and Local Government, stating that Bradford has just three people sleeping rough.

Results of the latest official count were described as an outrage by the many groups working to house and feed Bradford’s homeless population.

Whatever the statistics say, Hope Housing, Bradford Nightstop, Walking Free, City Lights, the Salvation Army, Beacon, the Bradford City Centre Project and Bradford Council, of course, know that the real picture is one that keeps them all busy.

There are many who fall into the homeless trap, including European migrants who, when unable to find work, cannot claim benefit or access any hostel accommodation in Bradford, because they are not on the benefit list.

Hope Housing was recently invited to a squat in the Bradford area by three such men who live with just one tap and a non-flushing toilet and this has been their damp, dark home for months.

Hosts Gill and Jonny Viner, from Thornbury, became aware of Hope Housing and, after some training, welcomed their first homeless guest last month.

Jonny said: “We recognised there were people in Bradford who are sleeping rough and we wanted to do something to help.

“It was all easier than we thought. He was so grateful. It made it all worthwhile,” said Jonny.

Gill added: “It has changed my perception of homeless people. A lot of them are not there by choice and they’re really nice people.”

Former housing support worker Helen Syrop, a committed Christian, was inspired to set up the charity during last year’s Hope Bradford, a movement which brought together believers from different Christian traditions to make a difference in their city.

She has been delighted to see it start to make an impact and grow to accommodate another worker in its first year – a real cause of celebration at the charity’s recent first birthday party.

“Hope Housing started initially by my husband and I having people to stay at our house when they had nowhere to go,” said Helen.

“We couldn’t house everyone. I knew from reading my Bible that it was something God wanted others to do. So I did what I could do – train and equip others to be hospitable to the poor and needy.”

Hope Housing has also joined forces with the charity Green Pastures to buy property to affordably-house tenants who are on the brink of being made homeless.

The dream of having Bradford free of homelessness is still a long way ahead for the charities that work to fight the problem, but the determination of ordinary local people to do something about it has to be a major weapon in the battle ahead.

Find out more about Hope Housing at hopehousing.org.uk, and about Green Pastures at greenpastureshousing.co.uk