NEW

Rough Sleeping Profile Homeless Link has published a short briefing with key statistics on rough sleeping

Statutory Homelessness

Statutory homelessness figures relate to the definition of homelessness in the 1996 Housing Act. Statistics are collected on people who apply for homelessness assistance to local authorities and people who are deemed to be homeless under the legal definition

• Statutory homelessness statistics for England can be found on the Communities and Local Government (CLG) website. Follow the link to the approprate quarter, where there are links to statistical spreadsheets including the Supplementary Table, which gives a breakdown by region and local authority.

Rough Sleeping

Knowing precisely how many people sleep rough at any time is complex: people move about, hide away or travel all night on buses. Others who claim they are sleeping rough may actually have somewhere to stay. In the 1990s, the voluntary sector and the Government agreed a way to measure rough sleeping consistently, to show trends and patterns. This helped to allocate resources fairly and measure their impact. The 'street count' methodology only counts people actually seen ‘bedded down’ by local teams during a short period at night and street counts are not conducted in every local authority area. The methodology therefore reveals the absolute minimum level of rough sleeping rather than the full extent.

• NEW - Rough Sleeping Profile: Homeless Link has published a short briefing with key statistics on rough sleeping

• Communities and Local Government collects street count statistics on its page Rough Sleeping Estimates in England The 2008 figures are now availiable.

• In addition, Broadway publishes quarterly and annual reports on rough sleeping in London, based on data from the CHAIN database. General information on CHAIN is availiable, as are the latest annual and quarterly reports

• The Simon Community often disputes the official figures and carries out its own street counts. You can find information on their latest figures here.

• An alternative source of national data are the Supporting People client records. This dataset covers people accessing Supporting People (SP) services and would not cover those engaging with services and/or still on the street, since it is a record of an individual's needs and situation when they start receiving housing related support. However, it can give an idea of number of people that come to services as rough sleepers. In the client records people accessing services are put in a primary client group and then up to three secondary client groups. You can access the SP data here

Supported Accommodation/hostels

For many homeless individuals without dependents the main housing option is hostel accommodation, the majority of which receives Supporting People (SP) funding. People living in hostels may or may not have been accepted as statutory homeless.

• There were just under 47,000 household units in this category, receiving support under SP in 2005. (1)

• See map of Supporting People accommodation contracts for homeless people without dependants (single homeless, rough sleepers and young people at risk) by administering authority, based on the Survey of Needs and Provision (SNAP).

• See map of Supporting People accommodation household units for homeless people without dependants (single homeless, rough sleepers and young people at risk) by administering authority, based on the Survey of Needs and Provision (SNAP).

Hidden homeless

There are other people who are homeless who do not show up in official figures. These include individuals and families who become homeless but find a temporary solution by staying with family members or friends. These are often referred to as 'sofa surfers' or concealed households. Others live in squats. There have been attempts to quantify the level of this 'hidden homelessness'.

• The New Policy Institute in their research for Crisis in 2003, estimated that there are between 310,00 and 380,000 hidden homeless people (Note that this figure includes people in hostels, who are not "hidden". ). (2) More information about hidden homelessness is available on Crisis website