4. In 2017 the highest estimated numbers of deaths of homeless people by local authority were in major urban centres

In 2017, deaths of homeless people were identified in 156 of the 347 local authorities (LAs) in England and Wales (Figure 1). The LAs with the highest estimated numbers of deaths included:

Manchester (21 deaths)

Birmingham (18 deaths)

Bristol (17 deaths)

Lambeth (17 deaths)

Liverpool (17 deaths)

Camden (15 deaths)

The accompanying datasets provide figures for all LAs that had at least one identified death of a homeless person in the relevant year(s). The table contains numbers of identified deaths, numbers of estimated deaths, and rates of estimated deaths per 100,000 total population of the LA.

The map of LAs in England and Wales (Figure 1) provides a visual comparison of estimated number of deaths by LA. The expansion boxes at the right of the chart provide an expanded view of the highest estimates and also provide more detail where there are closely placed LAs in these large urban areas.

Figure 1: Deaths of homeless people (estimated), 2017 Local authority districts, England and Wales Source: Office for National Statistics Notes: The white areas are the LAs that are represented by a coloured hexagon within their boundary. Grey shaded areas had no identified deaths of homeless people. LAs are shown on the map in four bands. These were grouped using the Jenk method of natural breaks because of the uneven distribution of deaths across LAs. Download this image Figure 1: Deaths of homeless people (estimated), 2017 .png (210.5 kB) .xlsx (82.7 kB)

The local authorities with the highest estimated number of deaths varied from year to year. However, Birmingham featured in the five LAs with the highest numbers of deaths of homeless people in every year from 2013 to 2017, while the London boroughs of Camden and Lambeth each featured in three of the five years. The highest estimate for any LA in any year was 23 deaths in Camden in 2016.