rough estimate

I'm feeling quite pleased with myself today.
I've managed to get an issue I really care about onto Radio 4's Today programme, when other national media weren't interested.
I've been wanting to highlight the inadequacies of homeless figures ever since I volunteered at a Christmas drop-in project. Local authorities send out teams on one night a year to count people sleeping outside. Manchester found just seven last time around but is no better or worse than any other city. The council is, after all, simply following national guidelines.
Based on these flawed figures - the UK total is about 500 - the government makes the grandiose claim that rough sleeping has been cut by two-thirds.
Many within the sector acknowledges it's a sham but there is a wall of silence around the issue, perhaps due to concern from agencies over their precarious council funding.
Some new figures found their way to me in May, courtesy of drugs agency Lifeline. Their research puts the likely number of their clients in Manchester who are street homeless at anywhere up to 400.
I tried everyone with the story - Guardian, Observer, Independent, Inside Housing and others. Only the Big Issue were interested. So I emailed my story to a BBC reporter, John Andrew, and he came up to Manchester last week to record it.
We visited the soup van and spoke to some of the 40-or-so people queuing up for food. Its founder said he believes the numbers have stayed constant, but that there are more destitute Eastern Europeans now than before.
It was aired to coincide with the running of the story by the Big Issue in the North.
Interviewed afterwards by presenter Carolyn Quinn, Ian Wright - the minister with responsibility for homelessness - used the word "robust" six times to describe the present system.
"My feeling is that it's robust," he said. "It was devised by the voluntary sector and is verified by a representative from the Department for Communities and Local Government."
* The report can be heard here. It is on the 8.30-9am clip and comes up at 8.44am. The M.E.N has covered it here.