Preliminary findings from the Museum of Homelessness show that 1,720 people died while homeless in 2025 – almost 7 per cent up on the previous year.
More than 10,000 people have now died while homeless since 2017 says the charity, which is run by people with direct experience of homelessness. In 2025, more than 30 per cent of the deaths were either on the streets or in rough sleepers’ accommodation, it adds, with the highest death rates reported in Camden, Brighton and Hove, Bristol, Edinburgh and Stirling. Over half of the fatalities were ‘deaths of despair’ – the result of drugs, alcohol or suicide.
The true scale of homeless deaths is also being under-reported by local government, it says, with the museum’s research finding almost 200 deaths missing from official data. Fifteen per cent of councils either ‘failed to respond or stated that they did not hold the data requested’, it adds.
The findings are broadly similar to those published by ONS, which show just under 1,000 deaths of people experiencing homelessness registered in England and Wales in 2025 – 77 per cent up in a decade, with 85 per cent of them among men. ‘We capture more people than the ONS due to our different methodologies – our approach enables us to identify more people in temporary accommodation settings,’ the museum states. Its full report will be published later this month.
‘This year’s findings mark a devastating milestone for the Dying Homeless Project,’ it says. ‘The investigation has now documented 10,243 deaths since we began recording in 2017, providing stark evidence that homelessness is a growing public health and social justice emergency. Behind every statistic is an individual whose life was cut short while experiencing homelessness, often in circumstances linked to poverty, trauma, poor health, inadequate accommodation, social isolation and failures of support systems.’
The 2025 findings are released ‘at a moment when national political attention is increasingly focused on homelessness and rough sleeping’, it continues. ‘We hope these findings are a spur to more action. Our investigation highlights the human consequences of systemic failure, telling the stories of deaths that could have been prevented if long-term investment in quality housing, healthcare and support had been prioritised. The Department for Health and Social Care should increase funding for harm reduction and suicide prevention; the availability of overdose prevention and safer injecting services should be an urgent priority in policy and practice, as should pathways into detox and recovery and trauma-focused mental healthcare.’
Deaths of people experiencing homelessness in England and Wales: 2013 to 2025 registrations available here