A LEADING national charity for homeless people has labelled a 62 per cent increase in the amount of people sleeping rough in the West Midlands as a ‘catastrophe’.
Jon Sparkes, chief executive of Crisis, hit out after the Government’s official annual street count found that on a given night last year 295 people were recorded sleeping rough in the region.
Worcester saw an increase of two people compared to last year with 12 people found sleeping rough in the city by staff from the City Council, Maggs Day Centre and homeless charity CCP.
While the charity welcomes the Government’s commitment to halve rough sleeping by 2022 and end it by 2027, it is urging it to take immediate action through its Homelessness and Rough Sleeping Taskforce to tackle this emergency situation and help the thousands of people forced to sleep in dangerous conditions every single night.
Mr Sparkes said: “This report makes it only too clear that unless we take action as a society, the problem is only going to keep getting worse with every year that passes.
“Rough sleeping ruins lives, leaving people vulnerable to violence and abuse, and taking a dreadful toll on mental and physical health. Our research has shown how rough sleepers are 17 times more likely to be victims of violence. This is no way for anyone to live.
“With the right support at the right time, homelessness doesn’t need to be inevitable. While we warmly welcome the Government’s pledges to tackle rough sleeping, including a Homelessness and Rough Sleeping Taskforce, now that we know the solutions to end rough sleeping for good we’re calling on the Government to take swift action to tackle the problem and fix it once and for all.”
Worcester’s count was organised by Ben Bradley, the city council’s Single Homeless Pathways Officer who said it was conducted in a sensitive manner to ensure they did not disturb anyone who was sleeping rough.
“Every local council has to provide an annual count figure or estimate of rough sleeping, following robust guidelines set down by the Government. We also had an independent Homeless Link verifier with us to ensure the guidance was fully followed.
“We had 21 people working on the count. People were found sleeping rough in a range of locations around the city – shop doorways, stairwells, car parks and other secluded spots away from the general public.
The count is just one element of the work that goes into monitoring the number of people sleeping rough in Worcester.
It forms part of the Government’s national programme for monitoring and tracking the amount of people sleeping rough across the UK on a typical night.
