Dennis Moore
Figures recently published by the Office for National Statistics show that 726 homeless people died in England and Wales in 2018, a rise of 22 percent on 2017. This is the highest recorded death-toll since reporting began and it is expected that the number will be higher for 2019.
The average age of those who died is 45 years for males and 43 for females. This compares to the average age of death in England and Wales of 76 years for men and 81 for women.
The highest number of deaths in 2018 occurred in London and the North West of England, standing at 148 and 103 people respectively, though there have been increases in deaths in the other parts of the UK.
These deaths come at a time when there have been repeated cuts to local authority budgets in the last decade, with many frontline services bearing the brunt of substantial cuts.
A homeless person in Manchester city centre sleeps as the temperatures reached freezing last January
Jon Sparkes, chief executive of the Crisis homelessness charity, commented, “It’s heart-breaking that hundreds of people were forced to spend the last days of their lives without the dignity of a secure home.”
Jessica Turtle from the Museum of Homelessness, a community driven social justice museum, said that people were mainly dying from drug and alcohol misuse, which is directly linked to cuts in services. “A lot of these deaths are preventable,” she said.
There is mounting concern over the dangers associated with the use of the synthetic cannabinoid Spice, known on the streets as Black Mamba.
The number of drug related deaths rose by 55 percent compared to 2017, with 131 deaths related to opiate poisoning, via heroin and morphine use, and the numbers of deaths from cocaine use increasing from 15 in 2017, to 30 in 2018.
John Hamblin CEO of Plymouth’s largest homeless charity, Shekinah Mission, spoke out recently about the deaths of homeless people, linking these deaths to cuts to funding from central government impacting on vital services for homeless people.
“Plymouth is doing some really good work but these figures are not any reflection on the efforts being done locally… Quite simply if you divest money from drug treatment services people will die.”
He went on to say, “You can’t remove that much money from local councils who worked to keep people off the streets and it not have a negative effect. This is not salami slicing—it’s amputation.”
In Middlesbrough in August this year, the deaths of five homeless people were linked to the redeployment of council staff in April. The council team, “Breaking the Boundaries,” had employed three dedicated workers to provide intensive support to rough sleepers living on the streets. Susan Gill, a community worker who runs the Neighbourhood Welfare homeless hub, and homeless cafe, said five homeless people she fed and helped at her homeless café on Princess Road in Gresham have died in the town since Breaking the Boundaries officers were removed.
Gill went on to say that the introduction of the draconian Universal Credit welfare payments had plunged many people into poverty, leaving them vulnerable to homelessness and mental health problems.
The number of homeless people dying in 2018 were just some of the 4,677 people who were classed as sleeping rough in England in the autumn of 2018, according to government figures. The figure for rough sleepers in 2018 was lower than the year before but is double that recorded in 2010.
The official rough sleeping figure is a vast underestimation of the real scale of homelessness. Last year, the Shelter housing charity estimated that there are at least 320,000 people in Britain sleeping rough or in temporary accommodation. Even this is a lower end estimation with the organisation explaining that its estimate does not include “sofa-surfers” and those sleeping in sheds, cars, etc.
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