Atlas of Homelessness Services in London – 2020 release now online!
Unique website showing services for homeless people across London is updated and re-launched by London Housing Foundation and Homeless Link
The Atlas website delivered by the LHF in partnership with Homeless Link was launched last year and has already had over 2,500 visitors and on average has been used over 200 times each month.
The Atlas is an interactive website that allows people to view service information and statistics across London, in a specific borough or at a multi-borough level. Commissioners, policymakers and others working in the homelessness sector use the website to quickly access information about available services and the latest statistics on rough sleeping.
Comments from people using the Atlas include:
We use the Atlas to benchmark our …services with others in the sector…I find it a very useful tool and use it regularly. (Homelessness services provider)
This is a very useful resource which brings some really helpful clarity about the homelessness challenges for London. (Housing Provider)
A single point of information – well presented (Local Authority)
Simon Dow, Executive Chairman of the LHF said: “We believe this updated and refreshed Atlas provides an even clearer view of services for people facing rough sleeping and homelessness in London. The Atlas provides a unique view of the 100s of agencies across London working to end homelessness. It has already proved a useful tool to local authorities, homelessness agencies and researchers.”
Rick Henderson, Chief Executive of Homeless Link, commented: “This is an incredibly useful tool for homelessness professionals across the capital, and will undoubtedly continue to help services to improve the support available to people sleeping rough in our city. This is particularly the case as we use the unique opportunity to build on progress made during the emergency response to COVID-19 to end rough sleeping for good.”
Becky Rice, Project manager, added: “Building on our initial development in 2019 and feedback from Atlas users, this new update includes enhanced information, for example, highlighting the level of Housing First provision, a new map of specialist health services for people facing homelessness, detail about the projects funded by the Mayor’s office, and the ability to view gender-specific services.”
To see a video illustrating the new Atlas go to https://youtu.be/Q2APlWDKXY8. To access the Atlas go to www.lhfatlas.org.uk.
All services included in the Atlas have been impacted by the Covid-19 pandemic. For more information about this please see our blog from April 30th.
- The Atlas shows that there are nearly 9,900 supported housing and hostel accommodation spaces in London for people or households without dependent children – and primarily those who are rough sleeping or at risk of rough sleeping
- The areas with the highest number of accommodation spaces are; Westminster, Tower Hamlets, Camden, and Lambeth
- The lowest numbers of bed spaces were in outer borough locations including Bexley and Merton
- There are at least 130 homelessness organisations providing support to people in London
- The most common provider (in terms of the number of services) is St Mungo’s, Look Ahead and SHP
- 20 boroughs commission a local service to provide the street outreach for rough sleepers in their area. Other boroughs rely on the GLA commissioned London Street Rescue (LSR) service for street outreach
- Thames Reach are commissioned to provide London Street Rescue. St Mungo’s is the largest provider of outreach services providing many borough commissioned teams
- In 2020 there are three No Second Night Out Assessment Hubs as well as several ‘staging posts’ which provided emergency shelter. Together these services provide up to 187 spaces for people who have been contacted sleeping rough by outreach teams in London.
