Surrey homeless charity: "We're going to be forced to turn people away"
A Surrey homelessness charity says that they'll be forced to turn people away as they don't have the capacity for the demand
A Surrey homeless charity says they are likely going to have to turn people away this winter due to too overwhelming demand.
Recent figures from The Museum of Homelessness say that there was a 9% increase in deaths in homeless people over the last year.
In 2024, 1,611 homeless people died. This was up from 1,474 deaths in 2023 and 1,313 deaths in 2022.
This represents a 9% increase in 2024 than the year before, with the majority of deaths being drug or suicide related.
The deaths come as the number of people living in temporary accommodation across the UK is at a record high .Furthermore, the number of people rough sleeping in England rose 20% in 2024 to 4,667, according to official statistics.
Renewed Hope is a homeless charity based in Redhill. They say that they have noticed an increase in demand by around 250% over the last few years.
Andrew Tyres is the Operations Manager there
"I was just looking at figures recently and we've had more than two and a half times increase just in four years of the number of homeless people we've seen.
Last year we had 175 homeless people come through our doors as opposed to 50 just four or five years ago, huge increase."
He adds that a major concern is that they are going to have to turn people away due to not having enough capacity.
"This year I think we'll be turning people away. We won't have the capacity for the demand that's going to come through.
So we do anticipate that during the winter there will be people that will still be on the streets depart, despite the services we're offering."
Andrew says that he thinks people can underestimate how slippery the slope can be to homelessness.
"I suppose especially in Surrey where the majority of people I'm sure are fairly secure as I say have those networks. But I think it is very easy to us to underestimate how how how easy it could be to lose that
A lot of people don't know where to go when things go wrong, before they know it, they're on the streets or having to leave their home at very short notice and don't know where to start."
Andrew adds that there is only one real way to help tackle the issue long term.
"It's almost a no brainer to say that the solution to homelessness is homes. Of course that is easy to say, a lot harder to deliver, but it is. We've got to keep working at that to find ways to provide housing that people can access, accommodation.
The bottom line has to be access to accommodation that is relatively secure.
I think part of the solution or part of making sure it doesn't get too much worse is making sure that people have access to services that they feel are accessible that can support them."