General Article Rough sleeper numbers ‘down a third in a year’ but charities warn figures do not show full extent

Topic Selected: Homelessness Book Volume: 398

Charities warned that the number of recorded rough sleepers is ‘a significant underestimate of the true scale of homelessness’.

By Gabriella Swerling, Social and Religious Affairs Editor

The number of rough sleepers has fallen by more than a third in a year, government data shows, but shows an increase of 52 per cent since 2010.

The Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government (MHCLG) has released data showing that the number of people estimated to be sleeping rough on a single night in autumn has fallen by more than a third in a year.

There were 2,688 people estimated to be sleeping rough on a single night in autumn 2020 in England. This was a decrease of 1,578 people (37 per cent) from 2019.

However, it also marked a 52 per cent increase since 2010 when there were 1,768 rough sleepers. This was also the year in which the Government first began recording the number of rough sleepers using the ‘snapshot’ approach to data collection.

Responding to the figures, published in t...

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