Where councils find households homeless, and where the Emmaus communities are

Every council in England reports how many households it found homeless. Emmaus UK publishes where its communities are — charities that offer people who have been homeless a place to call home and work. This puts the two side by side.

What Emmaus says, and what the map shows

Emmaus says: “Emmaus is a nationwide movement of charities supporting people to move on from homelessness.” A community shows in 47 of England’s 152 council areas, where 41.5% of the households councils found homeless in the areas counted were.

The largest count where neither record shows a community is Birmingham: its council found 3,579 households homeless in the year.

In London a community shows in 3 of the 33 boroughs, where 17.3% of the London households counted were found homeless. A community that tells the register it works throughout London is placed by that record in no one borough, so it counts only where it gives an address.

Where the Emmaus communities are

England’s counties and unitary authorities, split into five equal groups by the published measure of deprivation — the share of each area’s neighbourhoods in the most deprived tenth nationally.

There is no steady pattern with deprivation. Comparing the two ends: one is present in 11 of the 31 most deprived areas and 11 of the 30 least deprived. That is a finding about where Emmaus communities are, not about how much help anybody gets.

By kind of council

Every county and unitary authority, by the kind of council it is. London boroughs and metropolitan boroughs are the big cities and their conurbations; counties are mostly rural and small-town England; the unitary councils are a mix, many of them cities.

See the areas where no community shows, and what that does not mean →

The communities themselves

Emmaus UK’s finder lists 30 communities, each its own charity; their shops are their own trading and are not counted. 29 of them are on the register for England and Wales. The typical one — the median — reported income of £893,498 in its latest accounts. Emmaus says: “Emmaus empowers people to move on from homelessness and build a better future by providing a place to call home, training and work opportunities as part of a tailored package of support.”

What this is for

Two readers, and they want different things.

• Somebody who is homeless, or helping someone who is. The list is here to find the nearest community, with its own page on how people come to live there.
• Somebody arguing about homelessness and where help is. This sets the count councils report beside the communities that exist, council by council, rather than asserting either.