# Homeless deaths show level of national failure PM must confront – campaigner

By Manjinder Kaur Atwal — 2026-10-01

Manjinder Kaur Atwal, director of housing law at Duncan Lewis Solicitors, insists more needs to be done sooner after an estimated 974 deaths of homeless people were recorded in England and Wales in 2025.

She said: “These figures are shocking. One of the most concerning points about them is that they capture people at the very end of a much longer process.

“By the time someone is sleeping rough or living in emergency accommodation, there have usually been multiple opportunities to prevent their homelessness from reaching that point.

“Local authorities have duties to prevent homelessness and relieve it when it occurs, but the figures raise an important question about how effectively those duties are working for people with complex needs who may struggle to engage with services.

“There is also a warning in the gap between the different estimates. The ONS figures cover a specific group of people who were homeless at or around the time of death, while wider counts identify deaths that may not appear in official statistics. That makes it difficult to understand the true scale of the problem.

“The answer cannot simply be to provide more emergency beds after someone reaches the street. The focus has to be on earlier intervention, identifying people at risk and making sure housing and support are available before homelessness becomes entrenched.”

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