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London County Council.
HOMELESS PERSONS.
Report by the Medical Officer submitting the result of a census of homeless persons taken
on the night of 15th January, 1909.
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Ordered by the Council to be printed, 16th February, 1909.
In the following statement, I submit particulars of a census of homeless persons in London
taken in accordance with the instruction of the Committee, on the night of Friday, the 15th January,
and for the purposes of comparison I include the figures obtained when a like census was taken
in January, 1904, February, 1905, and February, 1907. The following table enables the figures of
1909 to be compared with those of the previous years:—

* Including 1,329 men accommodated for a few hours in shelters, but unprovided with beds (see text).
In comparing these figures, it should be pointed out that in 1904 the area covered by the
Council's officers who made the enumeration was somewhat smaller than that included in recent years,
and, in the light of experience since gained, it is estimated that the number of homeless persons on that
occasion might have been 2,000. It is, moreover, necessary to give some explanation of special conditions
existing at the present time which affect the figures for 1909. These special conditions have
arisen in the following way:—
At the time of the census in 1905, the Salvation Army had instituted a system of feeding homeless
persons at night at their shelters in Wych-street and Whitechapel-road. In 1907 this distribution
of food was still being carried on though the applicants were fed on the Embankment instead of
at the shelters. This year, however, the new method was tried of providing homeless persons between the
hours of 12.30 a.m. and 3.30 a.m. with food and shelter four institutions of the Salvation Army, where,
however, no sleeping accommodation was provided for them. The Church Army, moreover, in connection
with the use of tents in Aldwych, known as the King's Tents, where homeless men receive food and a
ticket for a bed in a common lodging house in return for work at woodchopping, had leased a
building in Millbank-street, Westminster, where the applicants for work were allowed to sit antecedent
to performing their allotted task. The mode of admission in each case was by means of tickets distributed
up to midnight on the Embankment. The Salvation Army and the Church Army thus provided
shelter for 1,184 homeless persons on the night of the 15th January, while 145 persons were provided
with similar accommodation in other institutions. If to this number the 759 persons found in
the streets be added, the total number of homeless persons would be 2,088 a number comparable with
the figures for previous years. It must be remembered, however, that several institutions in London
provide beds free of charge, and the inmates of these institutions on the night in question, although
of the homeless class, are not included among the 2,088 homeless persons referred to, in view of the fact
that they were provided with sleeping accommodation. A table showing the free beds for persons of
the class now being dealt with is included in the report. Again, I learn from the Church Army
authorities that 638 tickets entitling the applicant to a bed for one night in a common lodging house
were issued on Friday the 15th January, between the hours of 3 a.m. and midnight. All these
tickets would be available for use the same night. It might be urged that the users of these tickets
should be classed as homeless; in past years, however, it has been the practice only to include those
persons as homeless who were unprovided with a bed on the particular night on which the enumeration
was made, and the same course has been adopted this year. In any case the inclusion of these
638 men in the total of homeless persons would still give a number much smaller than in previous
years if the corresponding figures for these years were similarly included, for the number of
tickets distributed is certainly no greater than formerly, and in fact is less by nearly a thousand,
than on the night of the census in February, 1905.
It is impossible to state with any approach to accuracy, the number among the persons receiving
the tickets from the Church Army who use them for the purpose for which they are intended, for I am
informed that the sale of these tickets is carried on to a considerable extent. Thus, a particular individual
might perform his allotted task at woodchopping, which according to officers of the Army is valued
at 2½d.,in return for which he receives two meals and a ticket for a bed. This ticket, worth about 4d.
or 5d., he has no difficulty in selling to any regular frequenter of the several common lodging houses
at which the tickets are available. After disposing of the ticket for say twopence, the man may take
his chance of another meal from the Salvation Army with three hours rest in the warmth of the shelter.
19483—2,000—4.3.09 S.S./7814