01622 674064

Registered Charity Number 1048081
Statistics
Annual accounts year ending 2009

Today in the UK there are:

  • 90,000 families in temporary accommodation
  • 122,000 homeless children
  • 52,000 homeless young people
  • 400,000 hidden homeless

Hidden homeless are the sofa surfers and couch hoppers, the people who stay with friends or family for a while until the welcome wears out or the overcrowding causes problems and they are once more forced out onto the streets again

2009 rough sleeper count
The 2009 local authority street counts were carried out between January 2008 and May 2009.
The 2009 table includes data for local authorities that have since been abolished; street counts in these areas were carried out before 1st April 2009 when new Unitary Authorities came into effect.
  • In 2007 the Simon Community counted 301 people sleeping rough in inner London.
  • We know that in Maidstone tonight, between 25 and 30 men and women will be sleeping rough.
  • So according to Government figures that would leave around 150 over the rest of the country. Does that make sense?

Official counts are regulated and risk assessed so that only certain places are deemed safe for the counters to look; and if there are under ten rough sleepers in an area then these are not included in the figures. Rough sleepers do not usually sleep in well lit shop doorways and ‘safe places’ they tend to hide away for fear of attack so official counters would be unlikely to come across them.

Improvements have been made but the problems surrounding rough sleeping haven’t gone away.
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