Maeve McClenaghan is an investigative journalist working on a year-long project trying to log when and how people are dying homeless in the UK. The project, for the Bureau of Investigative Journalism, aims to both memorialise those that have died and provide irrefutable evidence on the scale of the issue.
They are gathering names and information through local press reports, talking to charities and outreach workers, FOIing councils, trawling inquest lists and talking to friends and families to get as full a picture as possible. Sensitivity and respect are paramount, and they have anonymised people where necessary/requested.
Maeve is using Crisis’ definition of homelessness, which includes: people sleeping rough, those registered as statutory homeless by their local authority, those who are living long term as ‘hidden homeless’, e.g. sofa-surfing.
Read more about the project here.
If you know of instances where people have died, please let us know (all off the record) by filling in the Bureau’s form. Or email Maeve directly.