Council Reveals Rough Sleeping Count Figures

Reading Borough Council has revealed the figures from the latest rough sleeping count, which took place on Wednesday 20 November 2024.

Whilst the count, conducted nationally across all councils in England, is intended to provide a snapshot figure conveying those rough sleeping on a typical night, it coincided this time with the Council’s Severe Weather Emergency Protocol (SWEP), providing an inflated official figure of 57 individuals.

SWEP was activated on 19 November 2024, running for five nights, and is the Council’s response to forecast temperatures of zero degrees or below for three consecutive nights to prevent people sleeping on the streets when conditions are unsafe to do so.

With SWEP active when the count took place, a truly representative count was impossible to achieve with difficulty in differentiating between those actually found and those reasonably expected to be found. Some people who would be expected to be found were already being accommodated under SWEP, and more people who rarely sleep rough were choosing to do so to ensure verification by outreach teams to receive an offer of paid nightly accommodation rather than sofa surfing or staying with family or friends.

The Council says that a more representative figure of the rough sleeping picture in Reading is 42 people sleeping rough, which comes from average monthly snapshot figures taken six months prior, an increase of six people from the official 2023 count figure of 36 people.

The count was undertaken through an estimate informed by a spotlight count, with teams out that night performing a physical count and then a meeting held with homelessness sector partners to estimate the number of people anticipated to have been genuinely rough sleeping that night. Therefore the figure of 57 consists of 21 people actually found rough sleeping and 36 who may have slept rough on the night of 20 November.

11 of the 57 people in the official count had no confirmed local connection to Reading, meaning they should be approaching their own local authority to explore housing options but are not engaging with them. 22 others had an unknown or unresolved immigration status which is preventing them accessing employment, benefits and housing. A national mandate means the Council cannot use legislation or grant funds to assist or support those without recourse to public funds, making it difficult to reach and support this cohort of people rough sleeping.

Earlier this week the Council received confirmation from the Ministry of Housing, Communities & Local Government of £133,011 additional funding, in light of the increased demands over winter, to support people in housing crisis and prevent homelessness and rough sleeping. This follows two previous waves of funding to provide targeted support.

January saw the launch of Tap for Reading, a scheme to ensure donations from the public reach those most in need whilst helping to deter begging on the streets, by encouraging people to change their method and desire to help the homeless by giving at a number of card tap points around the town centre. Residents can donate at tap points at locations including The Oracle, Broad Street Mall and Reading Station with donations divided equally between the four charities involved in Reading’s Homelessness Partnership – Launchpad Reading, The Salvation Army, St Mungo’s and YMCA Reading – to  provide practical support to people who are, or have been, rough sleeping in Reading.

The locations for all donation points, more information on how the money will be spent and how to donate online if you can’t make it to a tap point, can be found at www.reading.gov.uk/tapforreading

Matt Yeo, Lead Councillor for Housing at Reading Borough Council, said:

“The figure from this year’s annual count lacks the value it has had in previous years due to it taking place during a period of SWEP which has skewed the figures. Whilst we would have liked to postpone the count to ensure a more accurate representation, it needed to be completed by the end of November and there was a possibility that SWEP may still be running then.

“Our own figures from earlier in the year show that there has been a slight increase in rough sleeping in Reading, which demonstrates the need for increased funding to help deal with this issue as we are already offering significant support to people who sleep rough, and certainly more than many other local authority areas.

“We work all year-round with commissioned and charity sector partners including Launchpad Reading, The Salvation Army, St Mungo’s and YMCA Reading to provide over 250 spaces of accommodation with support, and have productive partnerships with local faith, voluntary and community sector organisations who provide additional support, often through the provision of food and clothing, or warm spaces."