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England

This is England: A picture of homelessness in 2019

By: Shelter Research
Published: December 2019

This is England: A picture of homelessness in 2019

Homelessness comes in many varied forms and is extremely difficult to accurately count. With this work we attempt to estimate a snapshot of the number of people homeless on one given night in 2019. The types of homelessness that we count in this work are:

  • people who have been accepted as homeless and now live in Temporary Accommodation arranged by the local council

  • people who have been legally accepted as homeless and now live in Temporary Accommodation arranged by themselves, or are living ‘homeless at home’

  • people who are rough sleeping

  • people who are owed a homelessness relief duty under the new Homelessness Reduction Act, but have not been provided with accommodation (this is a new element for 2019)

  • single people who are in hostel accommodation, but are not counted among the statutorily homeless people above

  • people who are owed a duty under the Children’s Act and are living in temporary accommodation that has been arranged by Social Services