§ Sir Raymond PowellTo ask the Secretary of State for the Environment, Transport and the Regions how many homeless people have used Admiralty Arch(a) in total and (b) in each week since the homeless unit's establishment. [54707]
§ Mr. RaynsfordLast winter Admiralty Arch was used by Centrepoint as one of the temporary winter shelters for rough sleepers funded by the Department of the Environment, Transport and the Regions as part of the Government's Winter Shelter Programme. Almost 500 additional beds for rough sleepers were provided in London as part of the Winter Shelter Programme and about 50 in Bristol and Cambridge. The Admiralty Arch shelter provided 60 beds and was open from 15 December 1997 to 31 March 1998. During that time a total of 253 admissions were made by 234 individuals. Weekly breakdown figures are not available but for each month the shelter was open the average daily occupancy figures were:
- December 1997: 28.37 beds occupied
- January 1998: 45.22 beds occupied
- February 1998: 44.5 beds occupied
- March 1998: 37 beds occupied.
The figures for December and March are lower due to staggered opening and phased closing.
§ Mr. WebbTo ask the Secretary of State for the Environment, Transport and the Regions, pursuant to the Green Paper Cm. 3805, New Ambitions for our Country: A New Contract for Welfare, (p84), what is the number of people sleeping rough at present; and what it was in April 1997 and March 1998. [54592]
§ Mr. RaynsfordInformation on the number of people sleeping rough is not collected by the Department. The last systematic count was undertaken as part of the 1991 Census of Population and found 2,674 people sleeping636W rough on Census night in England. The recent Social Exclusion Unit report Rough Sleeping Cm 4008 reviewed more recent information collected through twice yearly street counts in central London and ad hoc counts in various other towns and cities undertaken by the voluntary sector, and estimated that around 2,000 people sleep rough in England each night.