‘Shame on us’ outcry as more homeless die on UK streets
A SHOCKING increase in homeless people dying on Britain’s streets is a national shame, charities said yesterday.
Nearly 600 rough sleepers died last year in England and Wales, up by nearly a quarter compared with five years ago, official figures showed.
Housing Secretary James Brokenshire said the rise was “stark” and it was “simply unacceptable to see lives cut short this way”.
But charities blamed the Government for the growing deaths and called for immediate action.
Crisis chief executive Jon Sparkes said: “This is nothing short of a national tragedy, especially when we know that homelessness is not inevitable.
“In one of the world’s wealthiest countries, no one should be dying because of homelessness.
Tragic
“It’s imperative governments act now to stop this tragedy once and for all.” Shelter’s campaign director Greg Beales branded the deaths “a source of national shame” and blamed a “crippling shortage of social housing”.
He added: “There is nothing inevitable about homelessness or about these tragic deaths, which are a consequence of a housing system which fails too many people.”
The Local Government Association said ending homelessness was increasingly difficult and called for “proper resourcing” to tackle the problem.
Homeless men and women die, on average, at just 44. The Office for National Statistics found 597 people sleeping rough or in emergency accommodation were estimated to have died last year, up from 482 in 2013.
London accounted for around a fifth of the deaths, at 136. The North-west had 119, a jump of 115 per cent from 55. A 71 per cent increase, from 18 to 32, was recorded in the North-east, while there were 49 deaths in Yorkshire and the Humber, a 58 per cent rise.
It was estimated that more than one in 10 deaths were due to suicide, while more than two-fifths were drug or alcohol-related.
Mr Brokenshire admitted the Government needed to do more to end rough sleeping, promising: “We will.”
He said: “No one chooses to be on the street. No one chooses that life.
“There is absolutely no complacency, from me or from this side of the House in terms of the need to deal with this urgent issue.”
The figures were released days after Gyula Remes, who was sleeping rough outside Parliament, died in hospital after he was found in an underpass outside Westminster station on Tuesday night – next to where MPs enter the Commons.