Rough Sleeping (CHAIN) Quarterly Reports

This report presents information about people seen rough sleeping by outreach teams in London for the first two quarters of the 2014/15 fiscal year. Information in the report is derived from the Combined Homelessness and Information Network (CHAIN), a multi-agency database recording information about rough sleepers and the wider street population in London. CHAIN, which is commissioned and funded by the Greater London Authority (GLA) and managed by St Mungo’s Broadway, represents the UK’s most detailed and comprehensive source of information about rough sleeping.

Services that record information on CHAIN include outreach teams, accommodation projects, day centres and specialist projects such as the GLA commissioned No Second Night Out (NSNO) and No Living on the Streets (NLOS) assessment hubs. The system allows users to share information about work done with rough sleepers and about their needs, ensuring that they receive the most appropriate support and that efforts are not duplicated.

In these reports, people are counted as having been seen rough sleeping if they have been encountered by a commissioned outreach worker bedded down on the street, or in other open spaces or locations not designed for habitation, such as doorways, stairwells, parks or derelict buildings. The report does not include people from “hidden homeless” groups such as those “sofa surfing” or living in squats, unless they have also been seen bedded down in one of the settings outlined above.