Public Health England says homeless people living with mental illness or substance abuse will soon benefit from new funding to improve their access to vital healthcare.
The £1.9m funding, announced on Friday, will be given to councils to provide 'a crucial lifeline' to the increasing numbers of vulnerable people sleeping rough.
Matt Hancock, health and social care secretary, said: "Most of us can only imagine what it is like to sleep rough and it is devastating that so many aren’t getting the right access to healthcare.
"Living with a mental health condition or substance misuse while homeless can lead to a vicious cycle of crisis where people can’t get their lives back on track and their health issues remain unsupported."
Public Health's report shows that out of the people seen sleeping rough in London in 2017 and 2018; half had mental health needs; 43 per cent had alcohol misuse problems; and 40pc had drug misuse problems.
Compared to the capital, official statistics in 2017 show more homeless died in Manchester than any other local authority area in England and Wales.
Official rough sleeping counts in Manchester soared from seven in 2010 to 123 in 2018.
Hancock added: "Today’s announcement, along with our NHS Long Term Plan, will provide a crucial lifeline to those at risk of being left with nowhere to go and is an important step towards achieving this government’s goal of ending rough sleeping for good."
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The government’s Rough Sleeping Strategy was announced last August and aims to halve rough sleeping by 2022.
The NHS Long Term Plan commits to spending up to £30m extra to ensure better access to specialist homelessness NHS mental health support.
Applications for a share of the funding should be submitted to roughsleepinggrant@phe.gov.uk by 5pm on Friday July 5, 2019. Successful projects will be announced in the summer.
