According to the Guardian’s figures, the average age of a rough sleeper at death was 43, nearly half the UK life expectancy. Currently, homeless deaths are only investigated if there is concern that state agencies could have done more to prevent a death. According to the figures, rough sleeping deaths peaked at 23 in 2014, and reached 21 in 2016, but fell to 16 last year. Petra Salva, the director of rough sleeper services at St Mungo’s, called on the government to mandate safeguarding adult board reviews into every suspected rough sleeper death to establish more robust statistics. “We are taking bold action and have committed to halving rough sleeping by 2022 and eliminating it altogether by 2027.

Source: The Guardian April 11, 2018 05:00 UTC