Report: Number of Britons Sleeping Rough Increasing

TEHRAN (Defapress)_ The Guardian said in a report that the problem of homelessness in the United Kingdom was being underestimated by the government, adding that thousands of people sleep rough every night in the country.The Guardian said in a report that the problem of homelessness in the United Kingdom was being underestimated by the government, adding that thousands of people sleep rough every night in the country.

It noted that the number of British rough sleepers had increased by more than 57 percent since 2011, adding that a single charity had accommodated more than 9,000 people in last Christmas alone.

The report said authorities have mostly sought to downplay the acuteness of the crisis, adding that government agencies have strict rules to include people in their lists of rough sleepers and insist people living in encampments are not necessarily in the category.

The report, dubbed Tented Britain: rise in rough sleepers taking shelter under canvas, stated that encampments had become a feature of the British life and the country was not far from becoming like the United States where tent cities are seen everywhere.

It cited officials from cities with higher rate of homelessness as saying that a main reason for the crisis was government cuts in social services.

“A lot of this is to do with service cuts, whether that be the NHS, the police, some council services, those support services that were previously there if you had a drug or alcohol addiction,” Peter Marland, the leader of the Milton Keynes council in southern England, said.

Marland added that those services were in fact in place to prevent people from becoming homeless and sleep on the streets.  

He stressed that "obviously what a lot of those support services were doing is keeping people away from being homeless".

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