The data is collated using information from coroner’s courts, media coverage, family testimony and Freedom of Information requests. The government no longer publishes official data on the numbers of deaths of homeless people.
Among those who died was Anthony Marks, 51, who was assaulted in August 2024 near London’s King’s Cross station while sheltering in a bin shed.
Two weeks after being released from hospital, he was readmitted following a seizure and died. Four people have been charged over his death.
“We shouldn’t be surprised that people are dying on our streets,” said Tim Renshaw, chief executive of the Archer Project, a homeless charity in Sheffield.
“We have one of the worst systems in terms of making housing available to the poorest. We are looking at homelessness being related to health factors – trauma, depression, anxiety. And we’ve increasing levels of poverty.”
In November 2024, three homeless women died within 10 days in Sheffield.
One of those, a woman in her 40s, was buried without a single person attending her funeral.
She’d been known to homeless services in Sheffield for a number of years, said Mr Renshaw, but the name they knew her by was not her registered name.
When her funeral was arranged in her official name, no-one recognised her.
“It was an absolute tragedy,” he said. “We had people approaching us saying they’d liked to have attended her funeral.”