More people sleeping rough in the North despite fall in South

Rough sleeping has significantly increased across the North and the Midlands despite a drop in the South, official figures suggest.

Some 4,667 people were estimated to be sleeping rough across England last autumn, according to data from the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government (MHCLG) published on Thursday.

This was a rise of 2,909 since comparable records began in 2010, but marked the first decrease of the decade, with a drop of 2% since 2017.

Communities Secretary James Brokenshire celebrated the fall as a success for the Government’s strategy backed by nearly £100 million of investment, but warned there is a long way to go before ending the crisis.

Press Association analysis of the figures suggests that the North and the Midlands saw a 16.8% increase to 1,518 rough sleepers last year, whereas improvements were seen across the South, where some 3,159 people were estimated to be sleeping rough, an 8.5% fall from 2017.

Labour said the headline Government figures “obscured” the rise outside the South and warned that “poorer areas have been hit hardest by Tory cuts”.

Jeremy Corbyn called for “an urgent emergency programme” to provide shelter for all rough sleepers, while the Met Office warned that temperatures could remain below freezing overnight into next week.

The “snapshot” study was based on local authority estimates on nights through October and November, and had the figure in London at 1,283, a rise of 13% in a year.

However, a separate study published the same day showed the difficulty in estimating the number of rough sleepers.

Outreach workers recorded 3,289 people staying on London’s streets during the final three months, according the Combined Homelessness and Information Network report.

Charities seized on the rise since the turn of the decade, with Centrepoint head of public affairs Paul Noblet warning there are “many more hidden homeless people” in unsafe accommodation.

“Today’s snapshot statistics may show a slight decrease in the number of people rough-sleeping, but these figures are only the tip of a much larger iceberg as they only attempt to count the number of people sleeping rough on one night of the year,” he said.

Crisis chief executive Jon Sparkes said the scale of rough sleeping is a “damning reflection on our society”, while Shelter’s Polly Neate urged the Government to tackle “the root causes of homelessness”.

Mr Brokenshire said: “The number of vulnerable people sleeping on our streets has now fallen for the first time in eight years.

“But while these figures are undoubtedly a step in the right direction, I do not underestimate the task ahead in achieving our ambition of eliminating rough sleeping altogether by 2027.”

Mr Corbyn said: “There has to be an urgent emergency programme that provides enough places for rough sleepers to get a roof over their heads.

“It can be done if there’s a national endeavour to do it – in government we would do it straight away.”

Shadow housing secretary John Healey said the “desperately disappointing” figures underestimate the reality, urging ministers to do “much more to make good the huge damage done over the last eight years”.

“The national figures obscure the fact that in a large number of areas, particularly in the North of England, the number of rough sleepers is still going up,” the Labour MP added.

“Poorer areas have been hit hardest by Tory cuts, which means they’re less able to cope with the homelessness crisis on our streets.”

On Monday, a report by think-tank Centre For Cities said northern English cities had been disproportionately affected by austerity, with their spending cut on average by 20% compared with 9% for southern cities.

The MHCLG acknowledged its rough sleeping data is “subject to some uncertainty” and warned that some rough sleepers “may be missed” because of practical difficulties.

These include people bedding down at varying times across large areas and the availability of spaces in night shelters and the weather.