THE number of homeless people has risen by 14 per cent in a year due to “extortionate private rents” and a “dire lack of genuinely affordable” social homes, new research by Shelter has found.

The charity estimates that there are 354,016 homeless people in England — around one in 160 — on any given night this year.

This is 14 per cent higher than its 2023 estimate of 309,550 people but is still likely to be lower than the true figure, as not all types of homelessness, such as sofa-surfing, are recorded.

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.”

The charity said its study of people living in temporary accommodation, sleeping on the streets and living in hostels was “the most comprehensive overview of recorded homelessness in England.”

Government homelessness figures refer to people in temporary accommodation secured by a local housing authority when a person or family presents to them as homeless. Such accommodation 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 and single people in hostels but not counted in government statistics.

It also includes figures from freedom of information requests that the charity has made to councils seeking to learn the numbers in temporary accommodation arranged by social services.

The latest official figures, published earlier this month by the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government, shows that there were 123,100 households in England in temporary accommodation in the three months to the end of June, a rise of 16.3 per cent on the same period of the previous year.

A spokesman for the department said: “These figures are shocking and they show the devastating reality of the homelessness crisis which we have inherited.”