People living in hostels, night shelters or refuges on a non-permanent basis.

People living in hostels, nights shelters or refuges usually only do so because they have nowhere else to live, or because they need support.

For those provided with the accommodation on a temporary basis, this means that they may face the prospect of having nowhere to live in the coming months, although increasingly attempts are made for structured resettlement.

For those provided with the accommodation on a permanent basis, opinions differ as to whether they should be considered to be potentially homeless or not depending on whether permanent accommodation in a hostel is considered to be satisfactory or not.

High.  Hostel, night shelter and refuge populations are known to be unsettled, usually staying in accommodation for short lengths of time.  Those staying presumably have nowhere else to live but are not being offered permanent accommodation in supported housing.

None obvious

Some of the people in refuges may have been accepted as in priority need and placed there by their local authority, for example because of domestic violence.  While the numbers of such people are not known, and Women's Aid do not release such data, it would appear that the numbers are small. In most cases, even if some of the people have been declared to be homeless, it would seem that they have also been classified as not being in priority need as otherwise they would have been provided with some permanent accommodation (though a few may be placed on a temporary basis whilst awaiting a more permanent solution).

At any point in time, there are around 43,000 adults living in RSL-supported housing on a temporary basis.  This equates to around 90,000 over the period of a year.

In 2005/06, around 83,000 people aged 16+ are newly provided with supported housing in England according to the CORE database on new lettings.  Around 90% of these people do not have dependent children.

Of the 83,000, around 32,000 are envisaged to be permanent residents. To be conservative, all of these people have been excluded from the hidden homeless calculations on the grounds that if the accommodation is permanent then it should be deemed also to be adequate.

Of the remaining 51,000, around 14,000 have been classified by the relevant housing association as statutory homeless, accepted by their local authority for permanent re-housing, and temporarily placed in the supported housing pending this permanent re-housing.  These people should be excluded from the hidden homeless calculations.  That leaves around 37,000 others.

The average envisaged length of stay for these people is around a year.  So, the numbers in supported housing on a temporary basis at any point in time is around the same as the numbers newly provided with such housing over the course of a year (i.e. 37,000).  The numbers who spend some time in supported housing on a temporary basis over the period of a year is around twice the numbers newly provided with such housing over the course of a year (i.e. 74,000).

Scaling up these English figures give a total estimate of 43,000 in Great Britain at any point in time and 86,000 over the period of a year. 

The Housing Corporation's CORE Supported Housing database for 2005/06. ^[2]

Medium - the CORE database is the best available national source of data on hostels and similar accommodation. However, it does not include some hostels and shelters directly provided by voluntary organisations, charities and churches.