Laravel custom view helpers stop working when using namespace

I followed some tutorials to create some global helper functions to be used as blades.

I created a ViewHelpers.php file in the App \ Helpers folder. This file contains the following code:

<?php

class ViewHelpers {

    public static function bah()
    {
        echo 'blah';
    }
}

      

        
        
        
      

    

Here is my service provider that downloads my helpers (currently only one file):

<?php namespace App\Providers;

use Illuminate\Support\ServiceProvider;

class HelperServiceProvider extends ServiceProvider {

    public function register()
    {
        foreach (glob(app_path().'/Helpers/*.php') as $filename){
            echo $filename; // for debugging - yes, I see it is getting called
            require_once($filename);
        }
    }
}

      

        
        
        
      

    

I added it to config \ app.php under "providers":

'App\Providers\HelperServiceProvider',

      

        
        
        
      

    

And now I call my blade helper:

{{ViewHelpers::bah()}}

      

        
        
        
      

    

So far it works fine.

But if I change the ViewHelper namespace to this:

<?php namespace App\Helpers;

class ViewHelpers {

  // omitted for brevity

      

        
        
        
      

    

my views fail with Class 'ViewHelpers' not found

.

How do I make my views view the ViewHelpers class even if it's in a different namespace? Where can I add use App\Helpers

?

Another related question - can I alias the ViewHelpers class so that it looks like, say, VH:bah()

in my views?

And I would rather do it in a simple way if possible (no facades and what not), because these are just static helpers, no need for a class instance and IoC.

I am using Laravel 5.