MANY churches in York would have been marking Homelessness Sunday on January 27, so your editorial following the report about the "Police purge on city centre beggars" (January 30), was timely.

At our Unitarian Chapel in St Saviourgate we were moved and impressed by the accounts of two speakers who came to tell us something of the work done by the charities Night Stop and Arclight.

As they and you rightly point out, the problem of homelessness cannot just be swept out of sight.

The public may be interested to know that there is a scheme recently launched by the Churches National Housing Coalition. It's called Megabite and involves setting up a local project with a few food outlets who will agree to accept tokens called "Megabite meal squares".

People who want to give, but are not happy giving money, can buy these meal squares at £1 each from their local Megabite project and these can be exchanged for food. The scheme is in its infancy and aims to give people on the street access to a better diet on a more regular basis.

Of course the police have a duty to deal with aggressive begging and we know that money we give is in many cases likely to be spent satisfying drug or alcohol dependency. However, most people with drug and alcohol dependency have access to a nourishing diet and are lucky enough not to need to go on the street to feed their habit.

Rev Margaret Kirk,

St. Saviourgate Unitarian Chapel,

St Saviourgate, York.

Updated: 10:56 Friday, February 08, 2002