With many charities and shelters close for the festive period, emergency centres have been set up in the UK to give the homeless somewhere to stay until the end of the year.

For the next week, a central London school has been transformed into a reception centre for the homeless. People can use the computers, store their bags, have a shower, draw in the arts room. The centre also provides drinks and three meals a day.

It's one of 16 such reception centres set up by the homelessness charity Crisis across the UK, including nine in London.

"I think what happens at Christmas is that the isolation and the loneliness that comes with Christmas are exacerbated and even more obvious," says Crisis UK's chief executive Jon Sparkes.

Lyubomie Dimou is originally from Bulgaria but he's been homeless for 18 months. He was a chef for 30 years until a work accident left him with no job.

After six operations, Dimou is battling with depression. "I try to go back to the society, but when I tell people I am homeless they step back from me," he says. "They're scared from this situation and it's difficult." 

Around 12,000 volunteers keep places like this open all over the country, offering not just food and shelter but also advice on how to get help. 

"We do housing advice, immigration advice and welfare benefits," says volunteer SJ Lewis. "We've got specialist immigration advisers and housing advice. We're trying to find the first step people need to end their homelessness.

"The really important thing is we lead them into our year-round service, because we're not going to end rough sleeping this Christmas, but we are going to give people the time and space to think and move forward."

Charities say for the last decade homelessness has been increasing in the UK, and that 1 in every 200 people in the country has no secure place to live.

The newly elected Conservative government says it wants to end rough sleeping. But many charities blame the party, and its near-decade of financial austerity, for creating this problem in the first place.

According to the housing and homelessness charity Shelter, another three million houses need to be built over the next 20 years to solve the housing problem. At Crisis, Jon Sparkes agrees but says that social housing isn't the only shortfall in government funding.

"There are also things like the welfare system - vital things like housing benefit that people need to keep the roof over their head and not become homeless - now isn't covering the cost of rent in many parts of the country," explains Sparkes. "Those things need to be tackled if we are going to see homelessness come down."

On any given night, around 280,000 people will be rough-sleeping across the UK. Early in the new year, the emergency holiday shelters will close. And for many, that means it's back to the streets – to the stress and the fear of a life lived in London on the margins.