Hundreds dead and counting...

‘He was 34, that’s no age at all,’ Nick tells me as we chat outside a shop. ‘He had a perforated ulcer. He just went.’

Bearded and always tired, Nick is talking about his friend, a fellow homeless man who had died a few days previously. Nick himself has been homeless for several years after his marriage broke down, he lost his job and couldn’t keep up with home payments. He suffers from Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease (COPD) and has recently emerged from hospital. Despite his recent loss, he is looking healthier than the last time I saw him, less red-faced and clearly finding it easier to breathe. He’s still wrapped up warmly, though, despite glowing September sunshine and is understandably disconsolate.

This is just one death, but according to figures compiled by the Bureau of Investigative Journalism, more than 440 homeless people have died either on the streets or in temporary accommodation in the last year. In total, 449 bodies have been found slumped in shop doorways, in tents in woodlands in the deep of last year’s harsh winter or died in hostels after being sent there while terminally ill. In one case, a man was tipped into a bin lorry while he slept. Another man’s corpse appeared to show signs of prolonged starvation. 

Many, of course, will have died as a consequence of addiction, to drugs or alcohol, but such fates are hardly exclusive to the homeless community. And, if we were to put ourselves in their holey shoes, can we honestly be sure we wouldn’t be consumed by our current idle indulgences?

The average age of death for homeless men was just 49-years-old, for homeless women, 53. One of those who died was 94, the youngest only 18. Not only have they all been denied any dignity in death, but such a concept appears entirely alien to their existence at the moment.

Almost unbelievably, this appears to be the first time such a count has taken place. A Big Issue editorial notes, with palpable disgust:

‘Their lives are often surrounded in mystery, and no one in officialdom even bothers to count these deaths’.

And the analysis could well have underplayed the true horror of the situation. According to official government figures based on local government estimates, the numbers of people classed as homeless has risen from 1,768 in 2010 to 4,751 in 2017. This seems a vast underestimation of the true situation too; homeless charity Shelter using different methodology, estimated the true figure was in excess of 300,000 in November 2017.

Has there been a time in recent memory when central London had so many people lining the streets pleading for money? Earlier today, by Kensington High Street tube station, a body – whether man or woman it was impossible to tell – lay curled up beneath a blanket. Nearby, a woman was prostrate on the ground, nose close to the pavement, clutching a sign reading ‘Homeless and sick. Please help. God Bless’. The streets around London Victoria station are full of people asking for money, tents erected behind shops and in patches of green space. Those begging range from young, probably drug ravaged people, to a woman in at least her late 60s, pleading for help.

The government wants to eradicate homelessness by 2027 and half it by 2022. Heather Wheeler MP is the minister responsible for homelessness. In March, Ms Wheeler refused to accept welfare reforms and council cuts had contributed to the big rise in official figures of homeless people. It isn’t hard to conclude that while the government may have the best of intentions, it is beset by so many other issues, ideological and practical, that anticipating a solution to the current situation is hopelessly optimistic.

And one cannot simply lay the blame at the government. Every day we walk by these people with barely a glance, almost as though they are exhibits who once sparked interest but now simply provoke sighs. A decade of flat wages, in-work poverty and general disaffection cannot help their cause.

One positive from the publication of these figures, though, is that it has prompted the Office for National Statistics to say they will try and monitor and publish the deaths of homeless people going forward. One can only hope that becoming a value in death, they might become more valued in life.