Homelessness and Information Network

The Homelessness and Information Network (CHAIN) is identified in the book as a source of research on rough sleeping in London. Its reported figure for 2013 makes the network significant to the account not through a described service or membership structure, but through the contrast its research creates with official snapshot statistics: the number of people sleeping rough appears radically different depending on how it is counted.

Identity and reported role

The book describes CHAIN as the combined Homelessness and Information Network and states that it was funded by the Greater London Authority. It cites the network’s research as an alternative to government figures on rough sleeping. The evidence gives no further account of the network’s internal organization, data-collection procedures, or services, so its documented role here is specifically as a source of a London rough-sleeping estimate.

The 2013 London estimate

CHAIN’s research recorded 6,508 people sleeping rough on the streets of London during 2013. The book sets this against the government’s figure of 543 for London in the same period, derived using a one-night snapshot method. The difference is not presented as a small statistical discrepancy: the two counts produce sharply different pictures of the scale of rough sleeping in the capital.

Counting and visibility

The comparison is part of the book’s challenge to the limits of official counting. A snapshot records people visible to counters on one night, whereas the much higher figure attributed to CHAIN suggests a broader measure of rough sleeping across the year. The text does not specify CHAIN’s precise method, and the figures should not be treated as methodologically identical; its emphasis is on how much the chosen measure can alter the apparent scale of homelessness.

The surrounding discussion distinguishes these London rough-sleeping counts from other measures of homelessness. Research by Crisis and the Joseph Rowntree Foundation found that at least 280,000 households in 2013 had claimed to be homeless or at risk of becoming homeless, while government statistics counted 2,414 people sleeping rough across England in a one-night snapshot. These figures concern different populations and units, not a direct comparison with CHAIN’s London estimate. Together, they underscore the book’s concern that people who are hidden, temporarily accommodated, or absent from a particular count can disappear from the statistics used to describe homelessness.