HOMELESSNESS was branded Britain’s “biggest source of shame” today after figures showed rough sleeping in England rose by a fifth in a year with record numbers of children crammed into B&Bs.

Annual government statistics estimated 4,667 people sleeping on the streets on a single night in autumn last year — a rise of 20 per cent — on the previous year’s snapshot of 3,898.

The latest figure is more than twice than when records began with 1,768 in 2010 and marks the third year in a row the number has risen since a peak of 4,751 in 2017.

Experts called for a root-and-branch reform of homelessness funding as they warned that this week’s new £30 million emergency pot from central government will not solve the “devastating and shameful” crisis. 

Homeless Link chief executive Rick Henderson warned that the crisis was being caused by “a welfare system unfit for purpose, an acute shortage of truly affordable housing, extremely overstretched homelessness, health and social care services and a disconnect between government policies — from hospitals and prisons discharging people onto the streets to people leaving the asylum system with nowhere to live.”

Big Issue founder and cross-bench peer Lord John Bird branded the latest rise as “simply unacceptable” and that higher spending on emergency funding “must not be mistaken for a solution to this crisis.”

The rough sleeping figures were published as separate data showed a record high for both households and children in temporary accommodation — with the latter rising by 15 per cent in a year to 164,040 at the end of September.

The number is the highest since records for this measure began in 2004.

Households in temporary accommodation rose by 16 per cent to a record high of 126,040 over the period.

Shelter chief executive Polly Neate warned that children are being “robbed of stability in temporary accommodation, crammed into B&Bs and hostels without any space to sleep, play or do their homework.”

She said: “It is unacceptable that homelessness continues to rocket when the government has the power to end it entirely. 

“Homelessness has a simple solution — a safe, secure social rent home gives everyone the chance to succeed, but there’s nowhere near enough.

“Investing in 90,000 social rent homes a year for 10 years would give families a fighting chance and end homelessness for good.” 

On Tuesday, the government announced that it was doubling emergency homelessness funding for councils in England to £60m.

But the Local Government Association (LGA) said funding changes mean councils have up to £76 million less to spend on temporary accommodation for households facing homelessness compared with last year.

LGA housing spokesman Adam Hug said that an uprating of the temporary accommodation subsidy is “desperately needed.”

St Mungo’s chief executive Emma Haddad added: “We can see statutory services struggling and buckling under the pressures these numbers create.  

“We know the longer it takes to provide people with the support they need, the more complex their support needs become; early intervention is vital to break this heartbreaking cycle.”

The number of rough sleepers had the highest regional increase of 43 per cent in Yorkshire & the Humber.

It rose in all areas except the North West of England, where Housing First projects, where housing is offered without conditions other than an individual’s willingness to maintain a tenancy, are under way.

The Centre for Social Justice urged ministers to roll out the “proven solution to ending rough sleeping,” saying: “With Housing First, the government has a generational opportunity to reverse the trends of rough sleeping and improve the lives of thousands. The time for action is now."

Downing Street said that the number of children in temporary accommodation is “totally unacceptable” and tackling it is “what our Plan for Change is all about.”

Campaigners have warned that Tory and pro-landlord peers are trying to introduce an indefinite delay to abolishing Section 21 “no-fault” evictions — which have contributed to the country’s spiralling homeless crisis —  in the government’s Renters’ Rights Bill.

Renters’ Reform Coalition director Tom Darling said: “The statistics released today show the urgency of ending section 21 immediately as it grows as a cause of homelessness.”

Generation Rent head of campaigns Nye Jones said: “Behind every statistic are thousands of stories of people facing some of the most stressful, traumatic and insecure times of their lives.”