Rough figures
It is heartening to see a politician keeping a promise, particularly one made in opposition.
SIGN IN TO ACCESS THIS CONTENT
You've reached your monthly limit for unrestricted access to Inside Housing content. To get free unrestricted access simply sign in below, or register your details.
Sign In
If you are already registered sign in for unrestricted access to alll the content on the site.
The housing minister is to be applauded for acting on his pledge to introduce a more accurate account of England’s rough sleeping population.
As Grant Shapps, then shadow housing minister, pointed out in his 2007 paper on the ‘hidden homeless’, the previous government’s figures grossly underestimated the number of people for whom bed means the cold, hard ground. By now including estimates from councils which do not conduct actual counts, the official number of rough sleepers has trebled.
Sticking to his word was the easy part. But Mr Shapps has simply made the true scale of the problem official. Now he must do something about it. Axing the eight homelessness prevention experts from his department may have reduced its wage bill. Whether the volunteers replacing them will be an effective alternative remains to be seen.