Question
To ask Her Majesty's Government, further to the Written Answer by Lord Bourne of Aberystwyth on 5 March (HL13836), why they do not hold specific breakdowns on the number of (1) homeless asylum seekers, and (2) rough sleepers who are asylum seekers and refugees; whether the number of households accepted as statutorily homeless and granted refugee status in England equates with the number of individuals concerned; and if not, how many individual refugees were homeless in (a) 2013, (b) 2014, (c) 2015, (d) 2016, and (e) 2017.
Answered on
19 March 2019
Asylum seekers are not eligible for homelessness assistance. We record the number of ineligible applicants, but do not break this down by reason for ineligibility. The Home Office provides asylum seekers with accommodation and support to meet their essential living needs if they would otherwise be destitute.
Rough sleeping statistics are collected through a single night snapshot. The purpose is to estimate the number of people sleeping rough across local authorities in England on a single night, and assess change over time. Since 2016, where possible, we have collected the demographics of people found or thought to be sleeping rough via the snapshot, to give an indication of the representation of particular groups among people who sleep rough. This includes gender, age and nationality. However, it can be difficult to collect even this basic demographic information from people sleeping rough on a single night, and often people are not willing to share this information, so it is regularly recorded as unknown.
The number of households that have refugee status does not equate to the number of individuals. A household can be made up of one or more individuals. The department only holds this information at household level.