This research asked 86 people who had been homeless for at least 90 days about the services they had used. The research also asked them to describe any forms of support that would have prevented their current homelessness. Estimated public spending on the 86 people for 90 days was £742,141 in total and £8,630 on average. If the 86 people had been homeless for one year with the same pattern of service use, estimated public spending would be £34,518 on average per person per year, a total of some £2.96 million annually. For a single homeless population of 40,000, if estimated costs were at the average level, annual public expenditure would be some £1.38 billion.

This report also uses the available data to estimate the changes in service use that would occur, if someone were not homeless - because their homelessness was prevented - compared to the costs that arose because they were homeless. On average, it was estimated that preventing homelessness for one year would result in a reduction in public expenditure of £9,266 per person. The potential saving could be estimated as being as high as £796 thousand.