For the thousands of people who are sleeping on the streets or are in temporary accommodations, winter is one of the hardest times of the year. Being able to provide relief during this period depends, at least in part, on understanding how many people are affected by homelessness—and who they are. Unfortunately, that’s not straightforward.
In the U.K., a person is legally defined as homeless if they have accommodation but can’t reasonably be expected to occupy it, or if they don’t have any accommodation at all. This definition covers a broad range of circumstances—from those who can’t afford to pay rent, to those forced to leave home, for whatever reason. But the first thing to know is that there’s a big difference between the number of people who the state recognizes as homeless and how many people actually are. This is known as the distinction between the “statutory” homeless and the “non-statutory” or “single” homeless.
The statutory homeless are those who apply to local authorities as homeless and are accepted as such. People are only accepted if the council deems that they are eligible for housing support, or can be classified as being “unintentionally homeless” or in “priority need.” Information on statutory homelessness is readily available. All local authorities are required to report on the number of statutory homelessness applications received (and “acceptances” made) to the government on a quarterly basis.
In England, between April and June 2015, 13,850 households were accepted as homeless—an increase of 5 percent compared with the same quarter in 2014. Few of these households will have been without a roof over their heads. Rather, their circumstances can be considered an indicator of housing stress, as a result of relationship breakdown or overcrowding, for example.
Single homelessness refers to individuals without dependents, who are not entitled to accommodation from local authorities. Some of these are visible on our streets—in autumn 2014, the official rough sleeping estimate was 2,744, up 14 percent from 2013. But most remain out of sight—“hidden” in bed and breakfasts or squats and on the floors and couches of friends and family. There is no effective or robust mechanism to monitor single homelessness, so these people are largely absent from government statistics. Our best estimate is that there were 2.23 million single homeless people in England in 2013.
Experiencing Homelessness
A comprehensive dataset is also lacking on the needs of homeless people. Countless surveys and other analyses (for instance, of the client records of those accessing hostels) indicate that single homeless people tend to be male and multiply disadvantaged: with low levels of educational attainment and histories of employment in low-skilled and low-paid occupations.
