Experience of street homelessness
UK
Number of households (000s)
Not comparable due to different methodologies or different time periods reported.
England, Wales, Northern Ireland and Greater London report counts, while England and Scotland report a number of people experiencing street homelessness at time of homeless application. It is recommended to explore the GSS homelessness statistics interactive tool which explains how to compare counts and applications based data appropriately: https://gss.civilservice.gov.uk/dashboard/tools/homelessness-statistics/theme-home.html
Number of people experiencing street homelessness; Number of people experiencing street homelessness (per 100,000 population)
Rough sleeping snapshot in England
Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government
England
2010 - 2021
Annually
2010
ONS 2018-based population projection data used for 2020 (i.e. 2020 projections for 2020). ONS population estimate data used for all other years (i.e. 2019 estimates for 2019, 2018 estimates for 2018 etc).
Number of households experiencing street homelessness when approaching the local authority; Number of households experiencing street homelessness when approaching the local authority (per 100,000 households)
Statutory homelessness in England
Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government
England
2018 Q2 - 2021 Q3
Quarterly
2018 Q2
Number of applications where at least one member of the household experienced rough sleeping the night before their application (households); Number of applications where at least one member of the household experienced rough sleeping in the three months prior to their application (households)
Homelessness in Scotland
Scottish Government
Scotland
2002 - 2022
Annually
2002
Number of people experiencing street homelessness (population); Number of people experiencing street homelessness (per 100,000 population)
National rough sleeper count
Welsh Government
Wales
2015 - 2019
Annual
2015
This data is broadly comparable to the England count and Northern Ireland data for similarly sized cities due to similar methodologies. However, caution must be taken because local authorities in Wales are required to produce estimates over a two-week period, as well as a street count. Local authorities in England are not required to produce estimates prior to the count. Not comparable with the England or Scotland data on application nor with the Greater London CHAIN count.
Number of people experiencing street homelessness (population); Number of people experiencing street homelessness (per 100,000 population)
Annual Street Count
Northern Ireland Housing Executive
Northern Ireland
2018 - 2021
Annually
2018
2019 mid year population estimates used for 2020.
Number of people experiencing street homelessness (population); Number of people experiencing street homelessness (per 100,000 population)
Combined Homelessness and Information Network (CHAIN)
Greater London Authority (GLA) and St Mungo's
Greater London
Annual data, 2011-2012 to 2021 to 2022. Quarterly data, 2019 Q1 - 2020 Q4
Quarterly
2019 Q1
ONS 2018-based population projection data used for all 4 quarters of 2020 (i.e. 2020 projections for all 4 quarters of 2020). ONS population estimate data used for all 4 quarters of 2019 (i.e. 2019 estimates for all 4 quarters of 2019).
The following notes were provided by the data provider:
1. "In each period there will be a small group of people who fall into both the ‘Number of people deemed to be living on the streets’ and the ‘Number of people new to the streets’ categories, so the combined total of columns F-H will be higher than the unique total in column E."
2. "For the percentages columns I’ve followed the same methodology used in our published reports, so, for example, people whose nationality was not known are excluded from the base when calculating nationality percentages."
3. "Our definition of which boroughs are counted as Inner or Outer London is slightly idiosyncratic and might not match usage more generally accepted elsewhere."