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Written Question
Homelessness: Leicester
Tuesday 5th February 2019

Asked by: Keith Vaz (Labour - Leicester East)

Question to the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government:

To ask the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, what estimate his Department has made of the number of homeless in Leicester in (a) 2015, (b) 2016, (c) 2017 and (d) 2018.

Answered by Heather Wheeler

Concerning homelessness, latest data suggests that for the following financial years the numbers of households which had a main duty acceptance in Leicester are as follows:

2014/15

108

2015/16

129

2016/17

100

2017/18

80

National breakdowns are available here:

Table 784: local authorities' action under the homelessness provisions of the Housing Acts, financial years 2004-05 to 2017-18 (revised).

There is a difference between those defined as homeless and those considered rough sleepers, statistics of which were released on 31 January 2019. Rough sleepers are those people sleeping, about to bed down, or actually bedded down in the open air (such as on the streets, in tents or in bus shelters) - as well as people in buildings or other places not designed for habitation.

National street counts and intelligence driven estimates of people sleeping rough in England are conducted in autumn every year. All figures are independently verified by Homeless Link. The most recent data from the autumn 2018 annual street count and estimate returned a total figure of 4,677 rough sleepers, a decrease of 2 per cent from 2017.

From 2015-2018 Leicester have reported the following as their number of rough sleepers:

2015

22

2016

36

2017

31

2018

31

National breakdowns are available here:https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/775036/RS_STATS_2018_LiveTables.xlsx.

This Government is committed to reducing homelessness and rough sleeping. No one should ever have to sleep rough. That is why last summer we published the cross-government Rough Sleeping Strategy which sets out an ambitious £100 million package to help people who sleep rough now, but also puts in place the structures that will end rough sleeping once and for all. The Government has now committed over £1.2 billion to tackle homelessness and rough sleeping over the spending review period.