Rough sleeping in London has reached a record high in the first few months of the Labour Government, it was revealed on Thursday.
A total of 4,780 people were recorded as street homeless in the capital between July and September this year, a rise of 18 per cent compared with the same period last year. It is the latest in a series of records set in the statistics over the last couple of years.
The new data, published by London’s Combined Homelessness and Information Network (CHAIN), found that of that number, almost half - 2,343 - were sleeping rough for the first time. However, many of those people - a total of 1,796 - spent only one night sleeping rough.
It comes after mayor Sadiq Khan on Tuesday hosted an emergency summit on the topic at City Hall, at which he announced a £4.8m investment to provide advice and support to previous rough sleepers, in the hope of keeping them off the streets.
Mr Khan promised in his re-election manifesto earlier this year to “set London on a course to end rough sleeping by 2030”, by “working closely with a new Labour government to tackle the root causes of homelessness”.
But despite the mayor’s party having been in power in Westminster for almost four months now, City Hall warned that “the scale of the challenge and the legacy of years of underinvestment from the previous Government in housing and support” means that the situation this winter could “get worse before it gets better”.
According to the latest figures, just under half of those sleeping rough in London (49.4 per cent) were UK nationals. The second most common nationality were Romanians, making up 8.1 per cent of the total, followed by Polish people, who comprised 5.2 per cent.
Approached for comment, a spokesman at the Ministry for Housing, Communities and Local Government said: “This Government has inherited devastating levels of rough sleeping, and we are taking action to get back on track to end homelessness for good.
“As announced in the Budget, we are providing an additional £233m of funding to help prevent rough sleeping and future rises of families in temporary accommodation. This takes total spending on reducing homelessness to nearly £1bn in 2025-26.”
Matt Downie, chief executive at the charity Crisis, said: “It’s shameful that so many people are being forced to sleep rough, taking refuge in doorways and seeking safety on night buses. No one should be forced to live permanently on the streets, or to spend even one night in such a desperate, dangerous situation.
“Ministers have made some really promising commitments, including more money for councils and funding for new social and affordable homes. Yet this latest data is a stark reminder that we also need a coherent, long-term plan.
“The UK government should consult as soon as possible on its promised strategy for ending all forms of homelessness and demonstrate the political will that can fix this awful, broken system.”
John Glenton, an executive director at the social housing provider Riverside, meanwhile urged ministers to learn the lessons of Tony Blair’s Government, which cut rough sleeping across the country by over two thirds in its first few years in office.
“There is much to learn from the first Blair administration which cut the number of sleeping rough nationally across England from 1,850 in 1998 to 532 people by 2001,” said Mr Glenton.
“To achieve a rapid reduction in rough sleeping, additional money was invested in providing extra bed spaces and hostels.
“There has now been no significant investment in hostels in England since 2011 and nationally, the number of bed spaces in England has fallen by almost a quarter (24 per cent) between 2010 and 2022…
“We believe increased investment in supported housing would provide more spaces to help get more people out of temporary accommodation into a dedicated space where they can receive the support they need. These services provide a route out of homelessness, help to reduce spending on very expensive, and often inadequate, temporary housing.”
Glass Door Homeless Charity announced following the latest data release that it would be opening its own emergency winter night shelters next week, on Monday, November 4.
The shelters, which will stay open until April, are the largest network of their kind in London, with the charity saying they will provide a safe place for up to 105 people to sleep each night during the coldest months of the year.
A spokeswoman for the Mayor of London said: “No one should have to sleep rough on our streets and it’s shameful that numbers are rising across the country and in London.
“The mayor is doing everything in his power to help as many Londoners off the streets and into more secure accommodation, which is why he’s delivered record funding to homelessness charities in the capital and quadrupled City Hall’s rough sleeping budget since 2016, supporting over 17,600 people off the streets to date.”
She added that the mayor “remains committed to ending rough sleeping in the capital by 2030” and is working with other politicians and leaders from London’s homelessness sector “to establish a plan to achieve this”.
