Today, new data from the ONS has been
released highlighting that 688 people
died while homeless in England and Wales over 2020.
This follows on from the National Records of Scotland
(NRS) who yesterday released their data for
2020 reporting that 256 people died whilst
homeless in Scotland last year.
This data range covers the period of the Everyone In government
initiative that launched in March 2020 in
England, with similar schemes in Scotland and
Wales, in response to the COVID-19 pandemic.
These schemes saw thousands of
people experiencing the worst forms of
homelessness supported into emergency
accommodation across England, Scotland and Wales to ensure
that they were able to safely isolate from the
virus.
Additional analysis of the ONS data for England and Wales showed
that:
- The number of people who died whilst homeless in 2020 is an
11.6% decrease on the previous year.
- Of the
688 figure, 666 people were in
England and 22 in Wales.
- The average age of death for men experiencing
homelessness was just 45.9 years and
for women it was
41.6, decades shorter than the
average for people not
experiencing homelessness.
- Last year, there were an estimated 13 deaths involving
COVID 19.
Responding to the figures, Jon Sparkes,
Crisis Chief Executive,
said: “It’s simply devastating
that hundreds of people were forced
to spend their last days without the dignity of a place
to call home. These deaths aren’t just
numbers. Each individual was someone’s
loved one whose life has been cut short and
whose ambitions and dreams will now never be
fulfilled.
“We cannot let the lessons from each of these tragic and often
preventable deaths carry on going unlearnt. This is
why we urgently need to see the Governments across
England and Wales expand the current safeguarding review system
used to investigate the deaths of vulnerable adults to include
everyone who has died while street homeless.
“In the longer term, we also need to help people to avoid
homelessness before it happens. This requires a long-term
strategy from the Westminster Government to provide safe and
secure homes and access to healthcare for people facing
homelessness in England, and swift action from the
Welsh Government to implement their new plan to end
homelessness quickly and effectively. Only by doing this
will we be able to prevent further loss of life in the
future.”
