UK Homeless figures 'grossly underestimated'

The latest homeless figures have "grossly underestimate" the real scale of the problem, according to Homeless charity Crisis.

The government's national statistics on statutory homelessness published today say there has been a small drop in the number of people accepted as homeless by local authorities this quarter.

The figures show 15,680 applicants were accepted as homeless by local authorities between April and June this year, 2% lower than the same period in 2007.

However Crisis, a national charity for single homeless people, said the figures do not record what happens to the people who approach their local authority and are not accepted as homeless.

Leslie Morphy, chief executive of Crisis, said: "Being stuck on a waiting list for social housing, often in substandard temporary accommodation, is an awful place to be.

"Your life is totally put on hold, your physical and mental health suffers, and there are all manner of practical difficulties involved. It is, therefore, encouraging to see the slight drop in numbers of people in this situation.

"However these latest figures are grossly underestimated. There are tens of thousands of people who don't even get onto the housing waiting list.

"These unrecorded people are left to fend for themselves in hostels, on friends' and families' floors, in squats or on the streets. They go uncounted in these figures, and unaided by their local authorities, and they come through the doors of our charity every day in desperate need of help and support."

The charity is calling for local authorities to take responsibility for all those who need housing, temporary accommodation for all in housing need and for the Government to remain committed to its 2020 target of 3 million new homes.

The homelessness figures were published at the same time as a Tory report which revealed the number of people in England who are discharged from hospital with no home to go to has jumped by 53% in five years.

Commenting on the Discharged to No Fixed Abode report, by shadow housing minister Grant Shapps, Leslie Morphy said: "We welcome Grant Shapps' report into the problems faced by homeless people when accessing healthcare services. Sadly its findings do not come as a surprise.

"The Government must do more to ensure that health services are responsive to the needs of homeless people. Homeless people should be offered the support they need to access and navigate services and they must be given a high standard of joined up and ongoing care - something we all expect from the health service."

crisis (http://www.crisis.org.uk/)

A recent report on television from another London based charity claims that there are over 400,000 homeless people in Britain. That figure covers all aspects of homelessness, and includes those that are living in overcrowded family homes awaiting a place of their own to live in, down to the people sleeping rough on the streets. I personally would suggest that the figure is even higher when we add in the ' invisable homeless,' that is those that are not seeking help or housing, and do not show up on radar.

I found this piece via a crisis report to examplify the misleading figures that exist..

In dublin we had got a bit better organised on the streets... I had a meeting with 'the director of homeless services'. With me where two lads from the streets.. we had an agreement in our group that homeless pople must be present at any and all meetings etc.. I also wore a wire just for badness.. Naturally the meeting didnt really go her way as to each provision she mention the lads could quickly rebute by its inadequacy...She told us a whole heap of lies.. i didnt bother refute them there and then after all i had a copy!!!
She maintained that, that night there would only be 10 people on the streets rough...

we went dandering that night and counted 83, though we knew there were more but you couldnt really approach these places as they were under bushes and hid and the folks in em didnt like visitors!

For what its worth i try to keep an eye on the varying figures..

But you will never be able to come to figures in an office.. you have to be out there.. and accepted your not a dickhead!!


What would your guesstimate be Tom.. reckon it will be closer to the mark..

It would not be possible for me to speculate streetseen, but twice a year (spring and autumn) the Simon Community helped by volunteer's from many other organisations, do their own street counts across central London. The figures that they come back with will often be 50 ~60% higher than the official figures issued by local authorities. Even the Simon community admit that their figures are not a true reflection of the actual numbers sleeping rough in London.
The reason being is that many rough sleepers are hidden in unaccessable places at night. Closed public parks are a favourite sleeping place for many, but official counters will not climb gates to go and count them. We also have a large amount of people that sleep on night buses. Some homeless people that I know sleep on the roofs of office blocks undetected by even the police, they too go uncounted. And of course no-one knows how many people are squatting, or sofa surfing in London.

A point of interest, if a local London authority counts less than ten rough sleepers within their patch, they can officially round that figure down to zero and therefore be seen as having no rough sleepers.

If we applied the same theme nationwide perhaps we could add an increase of perhap 25~30% on the 400,000 homeless already estimated. That is an educated guess of course.