Making Them Count

'What gets counted, counts'.

Working from this simple proposition, the Dying Homeless Project has for some years provided the UK's most complete - and, at times, its only - record of deaths among those who've experienced homelessness. Run by Museum of Homelessness as a memorial to a community that can so easily become invisible, this year the report identified 1720 men, women and children who had lost their lives across the whole of the UK in 2025.

This autumn, for the first time in four years, the Office of National Statistics also issued a bulletin estimating that 974 people had died in England and Wales during 2025, an increase, they noted, of 77% over the last twelve years.

Now, with the government launching an initiative to get 'everyone in for Christmas', this episode of Illuminated attends the annual service of commemoration at St Martin-in-the-Fields, Trafalgar Square; hears from Jon and Elodie, whose friend Sparky died on a bench in Regent's Park; talks with Jess and Matt Turtle of the Museum of Homelessness in north London, as well as Gill Taylor, Strategic Lead for the DHP and those who compile the figures for the ONS.

Produced by Alan Hall and Eleanor McDowall
A Falling Tree production for BBC Radio Four