DOZENS of homeless people have died in less than a decade in Brighton, figures suggest.

Estimates from the Office for National Statistics show13 homeless deaths were registered in Brighton last year, while 82 people have died since records began in 2013.

The figures, which mainly include those sleeping rough or using emergency accommodation, are based on registered deaths plus an estimate of how many people died without being correctly identified as homeless.

A nationwide effort to get people off the streets during the coronavirus pandemic contributed to a national drop in homeless deaths registered during 2020 – but nearly 700 people across England and Wales still died without a home.

Joint chairman of Brighton and Hove City Council's housing committee Councillor David Gibson said: “Each death of a homeless person is a tragedy. We work extremely hard to help people avoid homelessness and to support them when they are homeless.

“We work closely on this with our many partners across the statutory and voluntary sectors.

“The city’s rough sleeper outreach team is working flat out to help people who are sleeping rough to access accommodation.

“However there is learning to be had from every tragic death of anyone who has wound up homeless. We are committed to learning from this.

“We would also be keen to research the factors underpinning loss of life, including better understanding the complex needs that some people face.

“One of the best things we can do to avert deaths is to tackle homelessness at the source and move people on as quickly as possible to secure accommodation, and to support those with complex needs.

“There is a national crisis with regards to housing and homelessness. This is a result of national issues such as an inflated housing market, a lack of affordable housing and increasing wealth inequality.

“This situation that has been exacerbated by Covid. Brighton and Hove is no exception. Our city has an acute shortage of affordable homes for people in need and those on low incomes.

“We are committed to increasing the supply of council-rented homes through redevelopment, buy back and new-build. We opened our first council-owned and managed high quality emergency accommodation block within the city this year.

“We’re building more new council housing than we’ve been able to for generations, but it’s still not enough to meet the need for affordable housing.”

In light of the sobering statistics, housing charity Shelter called on the government to step in and ensure nobody is left out in the cold to face the "ravages of homelessness" this winter.

A snapshot government survey taken on one night between October and November 2020 found that 27 people were sleeping rough in the area at that time.

Responding to the national figures, Polly Neate, chief executive of housing charity Shelter, said: "To think people's final days were spent homeless in the pandemic is a sobering thought.

"If it wasn’t for the government’s Covid response to help people off the streets even more lives would have been lost.

“As we head into another hard winter with the virus still circulating, we cannot leave anyone out in the cold."

Nearly nine in ten people who died while homeless nationally were men, while two in five lost their lives to drug poisoning and more than a dozen died with Covid-19.

Though the figure includes some deaths that happened during the previous year but were not registered until 2020 due to pandemic-inspired disruption to services, the true scale of homeless deaths could be higher than reported.

The ONS said the government's Everyone In scheme led to homeless people being placed in accommodation such as hotels, making it more difficult to identify them in mortality records,

However, together with temporary bans on eviction, the scheme is thought to have contributed to a decrease in the homeless population nationally.

A spokeswoman for the Housing and Communities Department said the Everyone In scheme had helped 37,000 vulnerable people and that the government is providing more than £2 billion over the next three years to tackle homelessness.

She added: “Every death on our streets is one too many, which is why we remain committed to ending rough sleeping altogether.“

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