Press Release

Homeless Link calls for action on rough sleeping

8th November 2007

Grant Shapps, Shadow Housing Minister, released his report “Roughly Sleeping” today disputing the national street count figure.

Jenny Edwards, CEO of Homeless Link, the national umbrella organisation for frontline homelessness agencies in the UK, said:

“It is good to see a renewed focus on rough sleeping as we approach the 10th anniversary of the government setting the aim of getting rough sleeping as close to zero as possible. The time is ripe to move on from debates about street count statistics to look at ending the evil of street homelessness for good.

Fantastic progress has been achieved by strong active partnership between homelessness charities and government. No one claims that street counts represent a full and accurate picture of the scale of the issue in every part of the country, however they have been applied consistently over a 10 year period. Other countries that have seen a escalating scale of rough sleeping, such as France, are seeking information so they can learn from our model of what works.

Now it is time to take a fresh look at rough sleeping, to introduce new approaches both for areas with higher numbers and for areas with a lesser problem.  We call on the leaders of all political parties and all local authorities to produce plans to show how they will end rough sleeping and set an example for the world to follow."