According to some research conducted by CRESR/Crisis:
“Rough sleeping may be more prevalent, enduring and ‘invisible’ than we think. The majority of respondents had slept rough, often in ‘out of sight’ locations and with little contact with support services such as rough sleeper teams. Rough sleeping was not an emergency measure for a night or two until adequate shelter could be found. Rather, many respondents had endured sustained episodes of rough sleeping.”
I’ll post more info but you can see the full report at:
http://www.crisis.org.uk/data/files/publications/HiddenTruthAboutHomelessness_web.pdf
“The survey was conducted in day centres for homeless people in 11 towns and cities in England. These were London, Birmingham, Oxford, Stockport, Newcastle, Blackpool, Manchester, Southampton, Newton Abbot, Sheffield, and Brighton. The character of, and services offered by each day centre varied considerably, from small organisations with a handful of regular clients with whom they work closely to large drop-in centres serving food and offering other basic facilities such as showers and laundry to 200+ people a day.”
I was at our soup-run last night and spoke to three different people who all stated that they do not use day centres (one because he was banned the other two out of choice). So this research might well be missing data from some of the most vulnerable individuals!