Since its inception in 2015, FEAST founder, trustee, and NHS dietitian Hannah Style (front left) has led the way in identifying the vast nutritional gaps faced by People Experiencing Homelessness (PEH). This provided the rationale for leading a seminal study investigating the nutrition status of homeless populations residing in temporary accommodation in London.
Nutritional screening tools detect risks such as malnutrition and obesity. They are an invaluable part of clinical practice, however they are often not used frequently amongst PEH.1 Which begs the question: despite knowing that dietary health inequalities in the United Kingdom are a major issue, why do we know so little about the health of society’s most vulnerable people?
Back in 2015, FEAST started out cooking meals in a men’s homeless hostel, Conway House, where we still operate today. Eleven years on, homelessness in the UK has reached critical levels, with London having the highest proportion of people living in temporary accommodation.4,5,6 This is reflected in our services; more than 50% of FEAST’s service users are PEH.
Temporary accommodation settings present concerning barriers to accessing regular and nutritious food, leaving PEH at risk of malnutrition and nutritional deficiencies, with serious health consequences.3 These include loss of muscle function, infertility, poor immunity, depression, as well as diabetes, cancers, and heart disease.3 Within this context, it is not surprising that PEH die on average 30 years earlier than the general population.3,8 However, there is limited data investigating diet and PEH.
Often, PEH face a challenging combination of three interconnected issues: mental illness, poor physical health, and substance dependence. Known as tri-morbidity, this triad of health issues compounds the challenges faced by PEH. Further contributing to these challenges are systemic discrimination within the health system, inadequate training for frontline staff, and dependence on charitable food services.3
This provided the rationale for Hannah to lead a first-of-its-kind study investigating the nutrition status of homeless populations residing in temporary accommodation in London. Between 2023 and 2025, in partnership with University College London research fellow Dr Adrian Brown, Hannah visited 18 hostels across seven London boroughs and met with 200 homeless residents to better understand their nutritional challenges.3
Of the few studies exploring diet and PEH, Hannah’s is uniquely the only one in the UK to use a nutritional screening tool to detect risk.3
The results can be viewed in full here, but Hannah found that PEH have extremely poor dietary quality, with notably low protein, fibre, vitamin, and mineral intake.3 Anecdotal reports from the study suggest that it was easier for participants to steal or beg for food than to use charitable donations, and they were also nearly eight times more likely not to eat for a whole day than the general population, despite catering provisions being available in a significant proportion of the hostels.3 Serious concerns were raised about participants’ inability to access a dignified, healthy diet, with 60% at risk of malnutrition.3
Despite these findings, Hannah also noticed a complete void in the NHS when it came to the nutrition of people experiencing homelessness:
“There’s a structural barrier. If someone doesn’t have a GP registration or NHS number, they’re often excluded [from health services, including dietetics].”3
With the prevalence of homelessness and the death rate among PEH in the UK increasing,4,5,7 these findings underline a clear need for systemic changes to improve nutritional outcomes for PEH. This is why, using this newfound data, Hannah and her team have developed the following recommendations for stakeholders across the system to help introduce tailored interventions and improve nutrition for people experiencing homelessness.3
1. Develop Nutrition Standards for Temporary Accommodation
Introduce policies to standardise cooking facilities and catering provision, promoting improved dietary quality and food security for PEH.
2. Improve Nutritional Screening Practices
Introduce routine nutritional screening and enhance standard tools with functional and social markers to improve identification of nutritional risk among PEH.
3. Increase Dietetic Referrals
Promptly refer PEH identified as being at nutritional risk to local dietetic services to offer tailored dietary advice.
4. Optimise the Use of Nutritional Supplements
With support and guidance from dietitians and primary care services, consider nutritional supplements providing energy, protein, vitamins, and minerals where food-first options are not available.
5. Strengthen Partnerships
Build relationships between local charitable and clinical teams working in homelessness and inclusion health to enhance care.
6. Training and Advocacy
Offer training in nutrition and food insecurity to improve the dietary quality of food provision.
Hannah’s work has inspired a partnership that has since established the Pathway Nutrition Committee (PNC), another novel project convening a network of stakeholders to improve dietary outcomes for PEH.3 Additionally, in collaboration with UCL and the PNC, Hannah and her colleagues are leading the co-development of a nutritional screening tool tailored to identify nutritional risks specific to homelessness.3
Hannah’s efforts to pursue such pioneering nutrition research have cemented FEAST as a thought leader in the homelessness and food insecurity space. FEAST understands the limitations of simply redistributing surplus food from supermarkets to PEH. The quality, variety, and quantity of the meals provided matter, as does bringing people together to cook, eat, and learn more about nutrition. Lasting food security calls on policymakers to enable all stakeholders in the food system to make changes that promote better nutritional outcomes.3
Armed with this knowledge, FEAST continues to focus on moving PEH up the food ladder and towards independence from food services. As part of our research arm within the charity, FEAST continues to partner with UCL and other universities to host MSc Dietetics students and support regular service evaluations. Our focus on monitoring and evaluation produces evidence that is vital both to FEAST internally and to our wider partners and policymakers.
Hannah’s ongoing determination not only to provide food to those going hungry, but also to properly screen for nutritional risks among people experiencing homelessness, forms the foundation of FEAST and serves as a reminder that FEAST delivers far more than just a meal.
Written by George Ray
References
1. Reber, E., Gomes, F., Vasiloglou, M.F., Schuetz, P. and Stanga, Z. (2019) Nutritional Risk Screening and Assessment. Journal of Clinical Medicine, 8(7), p. 1065. Available at: https://doi.org/10.3390/jcm8071065
2. Housing Executive (2026) Record Homelessness in 2026: What’s the Next Move? Available at: https://www.housingexecutive.co.uk/record-homelessness-in-2026-whats-the-next-move/
3. Style, H., Vickerstaff, V. and Brown, A. (2025) Nutrition Status of People Experiencing Homelessness Residing in Temporary Accommodation in London. Journal of Human Nutrition and Dietetics, 38, e70024. Available at: https://doi.org/10.1111/jhn.70024
4. Office for National Statistics (2024) Homelessness in the UK. Available at: https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/housing/articles/ukhomelessness/2004to2024
5. UK Government (2026) Statutory Homelessness in England: January to March 2026. Available at: https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/statutory-homelessness-in-england-january-to-march-2026
6. Shelter England (n.d.) Shelter’s New Interactive Homelessness Map. Available at: https://england.shelter.org.uk/what_we_do/updates_insights_and_impact/interactive_homelessness_map
7. BBC News (2024) UK Deaths of 1,611 Homeless People in 2024 Is Record High. Available at: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cvg9ygnj44no
8. Crisis (2011) Homelessness: A Silent Killer. London: Crisis. Available at: https://www.crisis.org.uk/media/237321/crisis_homelessness_a_silent_killer_2011.pdf
Stay in the loop! Follow us on LinkedIn and Instagram for the latest updates, or sign up to our mailing list below.