Homelessness Goes “Under The Radar” Say Researchers
A new study reveals as many as one in 25 people are classed as homeless in the worst-affected areas of England.
Homeless charity Shelter said more than 268,000 people across England are homeless, although the number is a “conservative estimate”, with many more expected to be going unrecorded. It said the leading cause was the loss of a private tenancy, with three in 10 cases coming as a result. Meanwhile, Shelter has launched an urgent appeal to raise money for front-line services.
The definition of homelessness under law includes rough sleepers, single people in hostels and those in temporary accommodation. Under these criteria, say Shelter, at least one in 206 people in England are classed as being homeless. Broken down, this results in around 4,100 people sleeping on the streets and at least 242,000 in temporary accommodation. A further 21,000 are either in hostels or being housed temporarily by social services.
London has the highest proportion of homelessness in the country, accounting for 31 of the worst hotspots – with the borough of Newham recording one in 25 people as homeless. The number of temporary accommodation households has risen from 35,850 in 2011 to 54,280 at the start of 2017. Shelter believes at least 35% of those households will still be in unreliable homes in a year’s time, showing little end in sight for many. This is partly down to the number of people losing private tenancies, which the charity says has soared since cuts to housing benefits started in 2011.
Polly Neate, chief executive of Shelter, is calling for an “ambitious new direction” from the government to tackle the issue, saying: “On a daily basis, we speak to hundreds of people and families who are desperately trying to escape the devastating trap of homelessness. [It is] a trap that is tightening thanks to decades of failure to build enough affordable homes and the impact of welfare cuts.
According to the BBC Reality Check, homelessness has been rising rapidly since 2010, but it’s difficult to know exactly how many people don’t have anywhere to live. Estimates of rough sleepers are calculated by counting people on a single night, and potentially millions of “sofa surfers” go under the radar.
Shelter, has pieced together various data sources to arrive at their figure. They used official data on how many households are living in temporary accommodation to calculate how many individual people that equates to. They looked at hostel bed occupancy to include people who turn up without being referred by the council, often paying a fee to stay, who don’t appear in official figures. And they asked councils how many homeless families they were accommodating, giving a much higher figure than the 78,180 homeless households usually quoted.
The government said it was “determined to tackle all forms of homelessness”.






