The Hidden Homeless - How do we know about them and what support is there?

Volunteers in South Yorkshire who help people in need, and who regularly come across the 'hidden homeless', have been speaking to Hallam to make more people aware that support is available.

For various reasons people might not show up in official statistics as being homeless so the council isn't aware of them - they're the hidden homeless.

Often it's places such as soup kitchens which are the first and only place to know about them.

Hallam's Chief Reporter Laura Pennington's been finding out more:

Peter Mulrooney has told us some of the people who come to the Barnsley Churches Drop-in for a cooked meal could be described as being part of the 'hidden homeless'.

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"Every now and again, especially for some of our funders or for the council, we help by asking the clients when they come in where they slept the night before. It's a very rough guide. I'd say that in the past about 50% have got their own tenancy but at least 50% won't. Some of those have got friends and they'll be staying with them but several of our clients will not have anywhere to sleep at all."

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He added that there are many reasons people might end up 'off the radar':

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"People coming out of prison sometimes they find that they've got a problem because although it's been organised for them to go and see somebody that sometimes breaks down. That is a big problem in Barnsley; people coming out of prison are straightaway not being able to find accommodation. Unfortunately they fall back into their old ways."

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Jonathan Lang, from Shiloh the homeless drop-in in Rotherham, said:

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"I do think there are hostels for them to go to, there's an overnight shelter, there's a hotel that puts them up, there's another sort of hostel type place."

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Graham Bostock is in charge of Emmaus in Sheffield.

It's a unique community where people who used to be homeless work for its shop in return for a place to stay.

He said:

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"I think there's a definite lack of support in many areas around homelessness . A lot of projects that we work with, I know are like ourselves, and depend on funding. I think there's a great myth why people are homeless as well, that it's their fault. I'm not saying for a minute that we don't have difficult people but the majority of people that we deal with have had many many problems and they've never been addressed."

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Gavin Johnson now lives and works at Emmaus.

He told us for the last 20 years he's been stuck in a cycle of drugs, homelessness and crime:

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"It's saved my life if I'm honest because I used to be bad on drugs when I was in prison. I came out of prison. Graham took a chance on me and I'm glad he did because it's proper helped me out. It's changed my life."

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