Rough sleeping in London has surged by 44% since 2022, however, a recent study undertaken by researchers at the University of Roehampton has set out to discover what more can be done to support the homeless community.

Thanks to funding from the British Academy, academics at the University of Roehampton and representatives from homelessness charity, Sutton Night Watch, tracked nine individuals in Sutton between August 2023 and February 2024.

Through Geographic Information Systems (GIS) software, findings delivered valuable evidence to help the research team identify a number of key statistics, including where people sleep on the streets, which areas they avoid due to the risk of theft or violence, and how weather conditions influence their movements.

The first of its kind study in the UK used remote devices to monitor the movements of eight men and one woman during the six-month time period, presenting findings through a borough-wide heatmap to show activity hotspots.

This partnership between Sutton Night Watch and the University of Roehampton began in 2021, when Dr Melissa Jogie was awarded a BIG South London Innovation Voucher to help the charity transition its services and operations into a ‘360 degree’ model. This project went on to receive the ‘Outstanding Collaboration in Community Innovation Award’ at the Innovation Summit in 2022.

This recent iteration of the collaboration will allow Sutton Night Watch to tailor the support it can offer to the borough’s homeless community.

Speaking on the study, Dr Jogie, Academic Lead on the project, said, “Most of the research that’s done on homelessness is ethnographic. It’s stories that people share verbally, so this project is really innovative. It’s the first of its kind to be done in the UK where the data collected with the trackers up us understand the story of homelessness through motion.”

Andy Fulker, Chief Executive Director of Sutton Night Watch added, “This research is a game-changer for us at Sutton Night Watch, as it will give staff valuable knowledge about where our clients spend their time on a day-to-day basis, which will help us to tailor support for them. We hope it will put us on the map in the minds of people who are homeless locally, who will know that we are there and will come to us for help.”

The findings from this project will be available to read soon through the project website.