Letter: Glimmer of hope in shop doorway

Sir: By offering homeless city-dwellers the chance to register on the electoral roll, with "shop doorway" as their address (report, 5 April), city councils may have solved the "benefit trap" faced by many of Britain's cardboard-city inhabitants.

The problem of homelessness leading to inability to claim benefit with which to pay rent on a property, without whose address it is not possible to claim the benefit, is well known. If "shop doorway" is sufficient for enfranchisement, then it ought to be sufficient to provide the crucial step away from homelessness.

PHIL MANFIELD

London WC1