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

To ask the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, what recent estimate he has made of the number of rough sleepers who have spent time in foster care.

It is vital we ensure all young people, particularly those who have been in care, have the right support and skills to live independently in later life. In the recently announced Rough Sleeping strategy, the Government has committed to fund £3.2 million in 47 areas to employ specialist personal advisers to provide intensive support, appropriate to needs of the most at-risk care leavers.

The Government’s most recent annual rough sleeping statistics for England were published in autumn 2017 and can be found on the gov.uk website. Statistics for Wales are published by the Welsh Government and the annual rough sleeping snapshot for Wales, published on 1 February 2018, can be found on gov.wales. In addition, CHAIN, which records information about people sleeping rough in London, shows 580 people seen rough sleeping in 2017/18 had previous experience of living in care at some point in their lives.

In April 2018 the Ministry of Housing Communities and Local Governments introduced a new case-level data collection called H-CLIC (Homelessness Case Level Information Collection). This will give local authorities and Government more information regarding homelessness and those presenting as homeless, including those individuals who have been in care and who have slept rough.