8 November 2007:
More action is needed to help rough sleepers move off the streets, not debate about how bodies are counted, according to Thames Reach Chief Executive Jeremy Swain.
In his report ‘Roughly Sleeping’, the Shadow Housing Minister Grant Shapps MP raises some legitimate concerns about how statistics on rough sleeping are compiled and communicated. However, Thames Reach believes that the rough sleeping counts are broadly accurate and that there is a real danger of the figure for the numbers of people sleeping rough in England being unjustifiably inflated, based on supposition and anecdote rather than real evidence.
It is very important that the figure of 498 people sleeping rough is understood as being a single night snapshot of the rough sleeping population. We know that in London alone, because people move on and off the streets, around 3,000 people will sleep rough over a year. Whichever way the figures are looked at, we know that the achievement of reducing rough sleeping, led by the homelessness voluntary sector with the support of government, is considerable. New York has a rough sleeping population over ten times greater than London's.
Our over-riding concern is that far too much attention is being given to debating the mechanisms of producing rough sleeping statistics and too little to how we can reduce rough sleeping to zero. It is intolerable that anyone should have to sleep rough in the United Kingdom in 2007 and we look forward to all political parties committing themselves to ending rough sleeping by 2012. In short, we want less debate about how bodies are counted and more action to help men and women move off the streets and forward with their lives.
