Rough sleeping is soaring in London, with over 1,700 more people on the streets than last year – a 21% rise, according to figures from the Greater London Authority (GLA).
The increase from 8,329 people seen sleeping rough in 2021-22 to 10,053 in 2022-23 was described as “categorically terrible” by Rick Henderson, the chief executive of the Homeless Link frontline charity, and “extremely alarming” by Sadiq Khan, the mayor of London.
Emma Haddad, the chief executive of St Mungo’s, a leading homelessness charity, said it was “a tragic reflection of the impact of the cost of living crisis and the severe lack of affordable housing”.
Rough sleeping fell last year as the effect of the government’s Everyone In initiative during the pandemic was felt. The Combined Homelessness and Information Network, which produced the figures for the GLA, said the jump was “likely to be a reflection of increases in the cost of living, and the winding down of Covid-19 emergency provisions”.
The figures illuminate the scale of the challenge facing the Prince of Wales, who this week launched a scheme to end rough sleeping by giving homeless people permanent housing, rather than putting them in temporary accommodation. The prince has said he wants homelessness to be “rare, brief and unrepeated” and was on Tuesday due to launch a programme in Belfast, one of six around the UK.
The government also made a manifesto commitment to “end the blight of rough sleeping by the end of the next parliament” and with 18 months to go, by far the biggest rise in people bedding down in doorways and parks was in the City of Westminster – home to parliament and central government.
Matt Downie, the chief executive of the homelessness charity Crisis, said: “At this rate, there’s frankly no hope that they will hit their target.” He said to see the impact of the Everyone In initiative undone “is frustrating beyond belief” and highlighted the “brutality of life on the streets”.
There was a particularly sharp rise in the number of people sleeping rough for the first time, up 26% on last year to 6,391. The number of people who returned to living on the streets after more than a year without sleeping rough jumped to 1,578, a 31% increase.
Khan restated his call for ministers to grant him powers to impose rent controls, to increase housing benefit rates to match rising private rents and invest in “new council and genuinely affordable homes”. He said the increase came despite a quadrupling of City Hall’s rough sleeping budget.
“We need much more support from central government, and better cooperation between departments if we are to end rough sleeping in London,” he said. “I’ll continue to urge ministers to get a grip on the cost of living crisis and restore the social security safety net which stops people becoming trapped in a cycle of homelessness. With rough sleeping rising most steeply amongst people who are from outside of Europe, these figures also show the devastating impact of the government’s immigration policies and asylum system.”
Analysis published on Tuesday by the Institute for Fiscal Studies revealed only one in 20 private rented homes in Britain are now affordable to people relying on housing benefit– the lowest level on record. One man told the Guardian it took him six months to find a flat in Woking, Surrey, that was within his welfare budget. The process was “insane” and left him facing homelessness.
The London figures are based on people seen bedded down on the street, or in other open spaces or locations not designed for habitation, such as doorways, stairwells, parks or derelict buildings. They do not count many more hidden homeless people “sofa surfing” or living in squats, unless they have also been seen rough sleeping.
Lee Buss-Blair, the director of operations at Riverside, a charity serving homeless people in the capital, said: “The government now has 18 months to make good on its manifesto pledge of ending rough sleeping in this parliament.
“Ending rough sleeping doesn’t just mean directing more resources at rough sleeping but also looking at the factors driving the increase in rough sleeping, which are only going to intensify as the cost of living crisis continues.
“This includes a chronic lack of social housing and the need for much more support for providers of supported housing.”
