It costs £47.60 to provide a bed, evening meal and breakfast for one person each night.
Income from statutory sources almost balances out salary and building costs.
However, it doesn’t cover food, heating, lighting, water, general maintenance and administrative supplies or money spent directly on individual guests.
For all these things we depend on donations and a welfare grant.
Funds spent directly on guests provide for immediate problems faced by people on the street shoes, socks, clothing, sometimes travel costs, educational necessities (books, exam fees), spectacles, teeth etc.
Communities and Local Government
Homelessness trends
Homelessness 'Acceptances'
The latest Statutory Homelessness Statistics for the October - December 2008 period showed a 21 per cent reduction in homelessness acceptances (Households accepted as being owed the main homelessness duty by local authorities under the Homelessness legislation), compared with the same period last year. These reductions are a result of homelessness strategies and prevention measures being put in place by every local authority in England.
Temporary Accommodation
The number of households living in temporary accommodation has been falling since the end of 2005, following a period when numbers had been static at around 101,000. The number of households living in temporary accommodation at 31 December 2008 is 67,480.
A wide range of temporary accommodation is used by local authorities to discharge their homelessness duties, but the vast majority of households (88 per cent) (and 94 per cent of families with children) are in self-contained accommodation.
71 per cent of households were in private sector accommodation, 18 per cent were in accommodation owned by social landlords and 8 per cent were in hostel accommodation and women's refuges. Only 4 per cent of all households in Temporary Accommodation are in bed and breakfast accommodation.
Rough sleeping
In 1998 the Prime Minister set a target to reduce the number of people sleeping rough by at least two thirds by 2002. This target was met a year early and is being sustained - currently a 74 per cent reduction on the 1998 baseline level - with 483 rough sleepers on any given night in England.
