Written evidence submitted by The Understanding Society, the UK Household Longitudinal Study (TH0005) [House of Commons. Committee of Public Accounts. Tackling homelessness inquiry]

Publication type

Parliamentary Paper

Publication date

December 19, 2024

Summary:

1. Introduction:

1.1. Understanding Society, the UK Household Longitudinal Study, is a world-leading longitudinal survey of continuity and change in UK life. From an initial sample of around 40,000 households, the same people are invited to participate in annual surveys. Together with its predecessor, the British Household Panel Survey, the data now span 32 years. Understanding Society is based at the Institute for Social and Economic Research at the University of Essex. It is an important part of CLOSER, a partnership of leading social and biomedical longitudinal population studies in the UK (www.closer.ac.uk).

1.2. Understanding Society is primarily funded by the Economic and Social Research Council, part of UK Research and Innovation, and receives funding or support from a number of government departments, devolved administrations and agencies. Anonymised data from the survey are made available to registered researchers from across academic, government, charities, think tanks and business to use in their own research.

1.3 Homeless people are a particularly vulnerable and difficult to count population. Understanding Society only conducts interviews with people who have an address. However, our data are used by a number of bodies to provide information on different aspects of homelessness – especially in its ‘hidden’ forms, such as sofa-surfing and overcrowding.

2. Summary:

* Research suggests the commitment to building 300,000 homes a year will be insufficient, and that many more may be needed.

* If action is not taken, the number of homeless people could double to 620,000 by 2045.

* ‘Hidden’ homelessness in the form of overcrowding and concealed households disproportionately affects people from minorities.

* Migrants are more likely to live in overcrowded housing.

* ‘Sofa-surfing’ is projected to rise 28% by 2041 – up 40,000 on 2022.

Subjects

Links

- https://committees.parliament.uk/writtenevidence/131414/pdf/
- https://committees.parliament.uk/writtenevidence/131414/pdf/
- https://committees.parliament.uk/writtenevidence/131414/html/
- https://committees.parliament.uk/writtenevidence/131414/pdf/
- https://committees.parliament.uk/writtenevidence/131414/pdf/
- https://committees.parliament.uk/writtenevidence/131414/html/
- https://committees.parliament.uk/work/8577/Tackling-homelessness/publications


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