MP, Labour’s Shadow Housing
Secretary, responding to the annual estimates of rough
sleeping released today, said:
“These new figures are desperately disappointing and show
Ministers must do much more to make good the huge damage done
over the last eight years.
“This new count shows that rough sleeping has more than doubled
since 2010, but even these figures mask the true scale of the
problem, as the Government’s numbers are well known to be flawed
and a massive undercount of the true level of rough sleeping.
“Ministers must now back Labour’s plans to end rough sleeping,
starting with a guarantee of emergency accommodation for every
rough sleeper in this cold weather and 8,000 homes to keep those
who have slept rough off the streets for good.”
Ends
Notes to editors
These statistics are widely recognised as flawed, and a
significant underestimate of the true scale of rough sleeping:
- the
rough sleeping charity, Crisis have calculated that 12,300 people
were sleeping rough over Christmas, almost three times the
Government estimate https://www.crisis.org.uk/about-us/media-centre/more-than-24-000-people-facing-christmas-sleeping-rough-or-in-cars-trains-buses-and-tents-crisis-warns/
- in
London alone, a more comprehensive measure of rough sleeping
calculates that there were 7,484 rough sleepers in 2017/18,
almost six times the Government estimate
- the
Government statistics are typically based on a count or estimate
on one night only
- while
some local authorities do conduct actual counts, the figures show
that the majority of areas (195/326) this year have only made an
estimate.
