Homelessness rises for second year
120,000 - Children and young people who are homeless. This does not include ‘sofa-surfing’, so is likely undercounted.
The number of people experiencing homelessness rose last autumn for the second year running, Quaker Social Action (QSA) has said.
‘The autumn 2023 “snapshot” showed a 27 per cent increase in rough sleeping. This is the second year that homelessness has increased and this number is 120 per cent higher than in 2010,’ said Samantha Cook, manager of QSA’s ‘Turn a Corner’, which runs a mobile library for people experiencing homelessness.
Current figures suggest that 120,000 children and young people are homeless in the UK. However, this is an estimated figure, writes Samantha Cook on the QSA website, and there could be more. According to Action for Children, these figures do not include the UK’s ‘hidden’ homeless, such as people who are ‘sofa-surfing’, staying on floors or with friends and relatives. Temporary housing was cited as a factor in the deaths of fifty-five children between 2019 and 2023, in a review of data held by the National Child Mortality Database. Forty-seven of these children were under the age of one.
QSA is also opposing proposals from the Office for National Statistics to stop publishing statistics on death rates among people experiencing homelessness. ‘As grim as the numbers are, we need to know and face them,’ writes Samantha Cook. ‘Figures should compel government to find solutions and channel resources where they are most urgently needed. Figures help charities to highlight the gravity and scale of homelessness in this country.’
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