Number of people sleeping rough in England rises by almost a third in a year

The number of people sleeping rough in England on any one night has doubled since 2010 and increased by 30% in the last year, with an estimated 3,569 people now sleeping on the streets across England, according to new government figures.

Homelessness charities described the figures as “scandalous” and “shocking”, and called on the government to launch a new national rough sleepers strategy.

London had 940 people sleeping on the streets on one night in autumn 2015, when the snapshot count was taken, a 27% rise on 2014. Westminster has the highest number of rough sleepers anywhere, with 265 counted.

The number of people with mental health problems sleeping rough has risen dramatically, tripling in London from 711 people with an identified mental health support need over 12 months in 2009-10 to 2,343, in 2014-15.

Crisis said the figures were a “stark and sobering wake-up call”. “There are practical and immediate measures the government can take to tackle rough sleeping and other forms of homelessness. With the average age of death for rough sleepers being just 47, they must act now,” the charity’s chief executive, Jon Sparkes, said.

In 2014-15, 17 of the 25 people sleeping rough in London who were known to services and who died while sleeping on the streets, were known to have mental health needs. Four in 10 rough sleepers now have a mental health problem, and this rises to over half of rough sleepers from the UK. Most rough sleepers with mental health problems are homeless for longer because they find it harder to access support.

Sixty-two percent of the homelessness professionals who responded to a survey conducted by the charity St Mungo’s said they had noticed an increase in the number of people with mental health problems sleeping rough in their area.

The report notes that many specialist homelessness mental health teams have shrunk or been closed as a result of funding cuts. Major cuts to subsequent homelessness prevention projects began in the wake of the financial crisis of 2008 and on average, local authority funding for services for helping vulnerable people avoid homelessness was cut by 45% between 2009-10 and 2014-15, according to the St Mungo’s report, Stop the Scandal.

Howard Sinclair, chief executive of St Mungo’s, said he was concerned by “both the shocking, unprecedented rise in people who are sleeping rough, and evidence that more of this group are struggling with poor mental health”. “Few would disagree that it’s nothing short of a scandal that people with mental health problems are sleeping rough. Not only that, but this incredibly vulnerable group are more likely to remain in dangerous and unhealthy situations for longer,” he said.

The figures come as little surprise to many working in the sector, who have noted a visible rise in the number of tents in parks and people in sleeping bags outside theatres and shops in central London and other big cities. But they mark a dramatic reversal of much of the progress made in the first decade of the century towards eliminating rough sleeping entirely.

St Mungo’s is writing to the prime minister to ask him to launch a new national rough sleeping strategy, with targets for reducing the number of people sleeping rough, and a commitment to focusing on the links between mental health and rough sleeping.

In London, 43% of people sleeping rough are from the UK, 36% are from central and eastern Europe, with 18% of the total from Romania. Around 14% were female and 12% under 26.

Homelessness minister Marcus Jones said: “No one should ever have to sleep rough, which is why we have increased central funding to tackle homelessness over the next four years to £139m.”

Crisis welcomed some “positive steps” made by the government towards tackling homelessness, but in its annual report on homelessness it raised “serious concerns” about the impact of welfare and housing reform on homelessness. Local authorities told the charity that caps to housing benefit allowances and the 2012 extension of the shared accommodation rate to everyone under 35 renting privately (meaning you can only get help with rent up to the rate of renting a single room in a shared house) have made it harder to help people out of homelessness.