This research report is part of a three-year study into the lives of single homeless people signposted, placed, or self-referring into unsupported temporary accommodation. The purpose of the research is to define the nature and extent of unsupported temporary accommodation in England, with a focus on the lives lived by those who fall through the cracks in legislation and public services.
There is very little good statistical data for the many homeless households that do not get full local authority support to find a permanent place to live; limited research has been conducted, and their precarious lives go largely unrecorded by research organisations or public authorities.
As a hidden population, their numbers are difficult to estimate; however, in this report we are able to outline the potentially substantial scale of the problem, identifying groups of
people omitted from official counts but who technically remain homeless. The report aims to to bring attention to issues largely omitted from the public sphere, to set a baseline for future reporting, and to serve as an introduction to a challenge that has so far been under-reported.
