Homelessness five times worse in UK than government admits as figures reveal 28,000 now sleeping rough

Ministers providing 'dramatic undercount' of people sleeping on streets, say campaigners

May Bulman
Social Affairs Correspondent
Wednesday 26 February 2020 14:04 GMT
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John Healey: Government is failing on homelessness

Homelessness is now five times worse in the UK than the government admits, according to figures that reveal more than 28,000 people were recorded sleeping rough in a year.

Campaigners have accused ministers of “seriously misleading” the public by providing an “unreliable undercount” of people sleeping on the streets.

The latest official rough sleeping figures, which the government calculates based on a one-night snapshot, show 4,677 people were sleeping on the streets in England in 2018 – down 2 per cent on the year before but 165 per cent up on 2010.

But council responses to a freedom of information (FoI) request show nearly 25,000 people were recorded sleeping rough at least once in England during the latest year on record, according to the BBC.

Shadow housing minister John Healey said the data showed the government’s statistics were “seriously misleading” and demanded an investigation into the "flaws" in the government data.

“These figures expose the shameful scale of rough sleeping on our country’s streets. The Conservatives can’t begin to fix the problem when they won’t admit the scale of it,” he said

“Ministers should replace these discredited statistics and adopt Labour’s plan to end rough sleeping for good.”

In a letter to the UK’s statistics chief Sir David Norgrove, Mr Healey said: "The government’s rough sleeping statistics are the sole statistics produced by government on rough sleeping so they are naturally and inevitably assumed by the public to be an accurate portrayal of the scale of rough sleeping. This is clearly not the case.

"I would be grateful if you would investigate the flaws in these figures and how the government’s statistics could be improved so they better capture the level of rough sleeping in our country.

It comes after Sir David said last year that an “apparent methodological change” in the way local authorities recorded rough sleeping meant the statistics “should not be used to draw firm conclusions” or to support claims about the success of the government’s emergency funding scheme to tackle the issue.

During Prime Ministers Questions last month, Boris Johnson cited the government figures suggesting there had been a 2 per cent drop in rough sleeping – describing it as a "floating glimmer of good news".

A government spokesman said: “We're committed to eliminating rough sleeping by the end of the parliament and our efforts have already led to the first nationwide fall in a decade.

“We're confident our independently verified snapshot provides a good estimate of the numbers of people sleeping rough on a given night. This year we will give nearly half a billion pounds to councils and charities to support homelessness and rough sleeping services and get people off the streets for good.”

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