More than 91,000 children in London will spend Christmas without a home
New research from Shelter suggests that at least 186,900 people in London will spend this Christmas without a home.
Shelter says the number of homeless Londoners has increased by 12% in one year, and amongst those without a home for this festive period are more than 91,000 children.
The charity's analysis of official homelessness figures and responses to Freedom of Information requests reveals that one in 47 people in London are now homeless.
The number of homeless people in England on a given night this year is 14% higher than 2023, according to Shelter.
The charity said its research into people living in temporary accommodation, sleeping on the streets and living in hostels is "the most comprehensive overview of recorded homelessness in England".
But its figure of 354,016 is still likely to be an underestimate, it said, as some types of homelessness such as sofa-surfing go unrecorded.
The charity's 2023 estimate for a given night of 309,550 rough sleepers equated to around one in 182 people.
The charity - which described its research as a snapshot of the number of people recorded as homeless on a given night in 2024 - blamed "extortionate private rents" and a "dire lack of genuinely affordable" social homes for "trapping" more people in homelessness.
The latest official figures, published earlier this month by the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government, showed there were 123,100 households in England in temporary accommodation in the three months to the end of June - a rise of 16.3% on the same period the previous year.
There were 159,380 children in temporary accommodation between April and June this year, those statistics showed.
The government figures refer to temporary accommodation secured by a local housing authority when a person or family presents to them as homeless, and can take various forms including bed and breakfasts or private housing leased by the council.
Shelter’s estimate is wider, combining people living in council-arranged temporary accommodation, those who have arranged their own temporary accommodation, rough sleepers, single people in hostels but not counted in government statistics, and figures from Freedom of Information requests it made to councils about numbers in temporary accommodation arranged by social services.
Shelter chief executive Polly Neate said: "As the country prepares to wind down and celebrate the festive season in our homes, it’s unimaginable that 354,000 will spend this winter homeless – many of them forced to shiver on the wet streets or in a mouldy hostel room with their entire family.
"Across England, extortionate private rents combined with a dire lack of genuinely affordable social homes is trapping more and more people in homelessness.
"Parents are spending sleepless nights worrying about their children growing up in cramped and often damaging temporary accommodation, as weeks and months turn into years without somewhere secure for them to call home."
A spokesperson for the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government said: "These figures are shocking and they show the devastating reality of the homelessness crisis which we have inherited.
"No-one should have to spend Christmas without a home and this government is taking urgent action to get us back on track to ending homelessness, including committing £1 billion in funding to support homelessness services.
"We will go even further to fix these housing challenges by building the social and affordable homes we need as part of our Plan for Change while the Deputy Prime Minister is also chairing a new inter-ministerial group dedicated to tackling the root causes of homelessness."
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