Rough Sleeper Deaths Not Recorded In Stoke

Stoke City Council has admitted it does not record deaths of their homeless population. 

In response to a Freedom of Information request made by the media literacy charity The Student View, asking how many rough sleepers had died in Stoke in the last five years, the council stated, “The council does not record or hold this information.”

Their response did detail the council’s budget for rough sleepers, which stood at £70,000 annually for three consecutive years between 2015 and 2017. In 2018, it rose to £369,056, including additional government grants. In 2019, the budget was £437,473, also including additional grants from the government. 

The number of Shelters in the town stood at three in 2015, including the YMCA, Salvation Army and Hope Street, and at four since the addition of the Macari Centre in 2016.