St Mungo’s Submission to the Spending Review – September 2020

Official counts and estimates of the number of people sleeping rough on a single night in England show the number has risen by 141% since 2010, when the methodology was first used, from 1,768 to 4,266 people. This number has started to decrease since the Government’s 2018 Rough Sleeping Strategy was adopted, which is promising. In 2019, the total number sleeping rough on a single night was down 10% compared to the 2017 peak of 4,751 people.1 Although reports from the CHAIN database of rough sleeping in London show an upward trend in the capital since 2017/18.

This submission focuses on the solutions to homelessness and, in particular, the further steps the Government can take as part of the Comprehensive Spending Review (CSR) to end rough sleeping by 2024 in line with its 2019 election manifesto commitment.