Homeless deaths fall for the first time since 2014

The number of estimated homeless deaths registered in England and Wales fell by 11.6% in 2020 on a year earlier, the first decline since 2014.

According to the Office for National Statistics (ONS), there were 688 homeless deaths registered in 2020, while in 2019 there were 778. It is estimated that 13, or 1.9% of those deaths in 2020 were as a result of coronavirus.

The fall in recorded deaths is affected by the Every In scheme, which provided homeless people with emergency accommodation to 37, 000 [number as of January 2021] after the coronavirus pandemic hit in 2020.

However, it is hard to make a true analysis of this data, as the ONS has stated that the Everyone In campaign made it difficult to identify homeless people in their mortality records so these numbers may have been understated.