The geographies of homelessness in rural England

Relatively little attention has been given to the geographies of homelessne ss in England, still less to the nature and scale of homelessness in rural areas. In this paper we draw on analyses of unpublished official statistics on local homelessness and a national survey of local authorities to invest igate the geographies of homelessness in rural England. In particular, we p resent findings on three key components of rural homelessness: the changing scale and profile of this homelessness; local authority practices for deal ing with homelessness; and the ways in which the scales of homelessness in rural areas may remain undercounted within official homelessness statistics .