How many rough (street) sleepers are there?

Through Government and the voluntary sector working together the numbers have reduced substantially from when they were around 2000 in the 1990s.
The Government’s official estimate for 2008 is that there are about 500 people sleeping rough on any single night in England, half of these are in Greater London.
However, one-night counts do not reflect the realities of the numbers sleeping rough - agencies report that in London alone around 3000 people slept rough at some point over the last year.
Of rough sleepers in London: 88 per cent are male, 65 per cent are aged 26-45 years and 77 per cent are white. 12 per cent of rough sleepers in London have been in care, six per cent have been in the armed forces and 43 per cent have been in prison.
Following campaigning by Crisis, this year the Government launched a new Rough Sleeping Strategy which included a commitment to end rough sleeping by 2012.

For more information, see our homelessness statistics page on our Homelessness Policy Watch pages