MORE than 30 people died in supported and emergency housing funded by Brighton and Hove City Council last year.

The number of homeless deaths – 31 last year – was a slight rise on the 30 deaths in 2020, it emerged this afternoon (Tuesday 12 July).

The high number of deaths among homeless people in Brighton and Hove prompted campaigner Daniel Harris to call for a report at a town hall meeting.

Mr Harris urged the council’s Health and Wellbeing Board to commission a report from Healthwatch Brighton and Hove.

He said that a national monitoring organisation, the Museum of Homelessness, had struggled to obtain information about deaths through a Freedom of Information request until he and councillors became involved.

Mr Harris said that supported housing was a statutory service for vulnerable people, adding: “This information wasn’t freely given. It was a struggle to get it – and we got it thanks to councillors.”

He called for Healthwatch to find out the figures for causes of death such as overdoses, adding: “We’ve got to learn from it.”

Green councillor Sue Shanks, who chairs the Health and Wellbeing Board, agreed that the council needed to learn from the deaths.

Councillor Shanks said that the council’s Housing Committee was conducting a review to improve the help available for people in supported housing.

But she said that she would discuss the prospect of a Healthwatch review with the co-chairs of the Housing Committee.

Councillor Shanks said: “We are looking at providing more support because these people who are in that sort of accommodation are obviously very vulnerable.

“For me, it’s the age of death of people who are homeless – in their mid-forties. It’s a very vulnerable population. We’ve had quite a few drug deaths in Brighton and Hove – and there are suicides.”

She said that the government had given the council more money to help with its drugs strategy and the suicide prevention strategy was also under review.

In January, the council said that it had stopped sending people to Kendal Court, in Newhaven, after several deaths.

It acted after East Sussex County Council said that it would take legal action against the city council, with one councillor accusing Brighton and Hove of “outsourcing people with complex needs to die”.