Rough sleeping

When most people think of a homeless person they tend to think of someone sleeping rough on the streets. Sleeping rough is a dangerous and traumatising experience. Rough sleepers have an average life expectancy of just 42 years, compared with the national average of 74 for men and 79 for women. [1] People who sleep rough are 35 times more likely to commit suicide than the general population. [2]

It is difficult to get an absolute figure for the number of people sleeping rough. One reason for this is that, in order to protect themselves, many rough sleepers hide themselves away in places where they might be difficult to find and this is especially true for women[3].

Reduction in rough sleeping has stalled

However, Government snapshot figures of the numbers sleeping rough in England based on one night street counts show that there has been a substantial reduction since the late 90s when there were around 1,800 people sleeping rough on any one night. By 2002, this snapshot estimated the number of rough sleepers to be below 600. This substantial fall was achieved as a result of the Government and the voluntary sector working together. However, in recent years progress has stalled and since 2002 figures have remained broadly constant at around 500, with half being in London and the majority of these in Westminster.

But Government figures only tell part of the story. In London alone agencies report that around 3500 people slept rough over the course of the last year.

As a result of campaigning by Crisis and others, the Government and the Mayor of London are now committed to ending rough sleeping in England by 2012.

Devolution has lead to a divergence in both homelessness legislation and the way in which homelessness statistics are gathered, there are also particularly large numbers of rough sleepers in London.

The following sections are therefore divided into England, London, Scotland and Wales.

England

The Government's official estimate for June 2009 was that 464 people were sleeping rough on any single night in England. 263 of these were in London and of these 110 were in Westminster. Outside London, the largest concentrations of rough sleepers in England are found in Bath, 10; Bedford, 10; Chester, Liverpool and Manchester, all 9.

London

Rough sleeping, as with homelessness in general, is a particular problem in London, where it represents almost half of all rough sleeping in England.

In London, when an individual is contacted by outreach teams or other services working with rough sleepers, their details are entered onto a database (CHAIN).

According to CHAIN:

3472 people slept rough at some point in London during 2008/09, an increase of 15% on the previous year's total of 3017 and of more than a thousand since 2005/06.
58% of rough sleepers are new, 26% have been rough sleeping for two or more years and 16% have returned to rough sleeping after a gap of a year or more.
87% are male, 74% are white.
62% are aged between 25 and 45 years with only 7% under 25 and 30% over 45.
Many have one or more support needs - 49% alcohol, 41% drugs, 35% mental health.
40% have been in prison at some point, 12% in care and 7% in the armed forces.
14% are from EU A8 and A2 countries and 4% were from Eritrea. For more information see Migrants.

Scotland

In 2001, a major report by the Scottish Executive[4] found that in a two week period, there were as many as 500 people who had slept rough for at least one night. These figures were collected by a survey of projects and services working with homeless people across Scotland. The same report found that:

Over 80% of rough sleepers were male.
45% were aged between 25 and 40 years.
25% were under 24 years old.
Around 1/3 were in Glasgow and another 1/3 were in Edinburgh.

By October 2003, the same survey found that the number of people sleeping rough over a two week period had reduced to 328.[5]

Local authorities have also been collecting data on rough sleeping. In 2007/8[6], 283 households applying to their local authority for homelessness assistance said they had slept rough the night before and a further 289 reported their previous housing situation as ‘long term roofless'.

Wales

In 2007 and 2008 the Welsh Assembly Government (WAG) asked local authorities to carry out rough sleeper counts for the first time. These estimated that, on the night of the counts, there were 138 people sleeping rough in 2007 and 124 in 2008.[7]

However, these were judged to be an underestimate, as information from other sources, such as outreach services and other agencies, suggested that in Wales: