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More than one in 20 people are homeless in parts of London, according to research published by the charity Shelter on Thursday after ministers set out a new strategy to stop people losing their homes.
Some 382,618 people are estimated to have nowhere permanent to live across England, an annual increase of 8 per cent, according to the charity’s analysis of government data.
In London, where rental costs have increasingly been outstripping incomes, one in 45 people was homeless on a given day in 2025, the research found.
The highest rate of homelessness in England was recorded in the east London borough of Newham, where one in 18 people was estimated to be without a home, Shelter said. One in 21 people in Westminster and one in 26 people in Lambeth were also homeless.
Shelter’s analysis came as ministers launched a £3.5bn homelessness strategy including measures designed to prevent people losing their homes, after promising a “new cross-government approach” to the issue ahead of last year’s general election.
The strategy will require hospitals, prisons and other public services to work together to prevent homelessness, while committing to halving the number of people sleeping rough on the streets and ending the practice of housing families with children in bed-and-breakfast accommodation.
The number of people registered as homeless — not necessarily sleeping on the streets, but in the most part housed in temporary accommodation, paid for by their local authority — has increased in recent years as private rents have surged, housing benefit has remained frozen and demand for social housing has outstripped supply.
Shelter’s chief executive, Sarah Elliott, welcomed the government’s pledges but said “a plan to get the people who are currently stuck in temporary accommodation, or on the streets, into a safe home” was badly needed.
At more than 350,000, the number of people in temporary accommodation across England had hit its highest level since records began, the charity said, with a 45 per cent annual rise taking the figure to 3,198 in Liverpool.
There are also more than 4,600 people sleeping on the streets on any given night, up 20 per cent in a year.
“Many of the families calling Shelter are stuck in inherently damaging temporary accommodation for years — this should not be the tolerated norm,” Elliott said. “For the government’s strategy to work, its goal must be to wipe out homelessness in its entirety.”
Ministers have promised to build 1.5mn new homes by the end of the parliament, although they have not said how many will be “affordable” — at below market rate — or social housing. Last year 12,198 new social homes were built in England.
The government on Wednesday pointed to an extra £1bn for preventive measures such as extra support and advice for people at risk of losing their homes.
Housing secretary Steve Reed said the strategy aimed to make homelessness “rare, brief and not repeated”.
