Homelessness up 20% over last 12 months - Shelter

The number of people who were homeless in the East of England has increased by 20% in the last 12 months, according to the charity Shelter.

According to its annual check, about 24,000 people were homeless in the region, 11,500 of whom were children.

Luton and Bedford, and Basildon in Essex topped the areas in eastern England for homeless numbers, measured by council district.

In Luton, the rate of homelessness was found to be one in every 57 people, compared to East Cambridgeshire, which had the lowest recorded figures in the region, of one in every 2,741.

Basildon was second highest - with the rate of homelessness standing at one every 94 while Bedford's tally was one in every 103.

Peterborough was ninth in the tables, with one in every 230 people without a home or living in temporary accommodation.

In Norfolk's districts, Great Yarmouth saw the highest numbers of homeless people in the county with one in every 542, with Norwich having the lowest at one in 1,674.

In Suffolk, the district with the highest number was East Suffolk with one in 624 people homeless. Ipswich was one in 767, while West Suffolk had the lowest figure at one in 1,101.

Shelter's analysis of official homelessness figures and responses to Freedom of Information requests saw 337 people sleeping rough in the region on any given night, a rise of 18%, compared with 2023.

Southend-on-Sea saw the highest figure, with 35 people living on the streets on any given night in 2024.

The homeless charity pointed to "record private rents combined with inadequate housing benefit, rising evictions and a lack of genuinely affordable social homes" as behind the causes of homelessness.

Families who become homeless are usually placed in temporary accommodation by their local council, but the charity found often "this accommodation is far from temporary, as the government's own data showed that one in five (22%) of families in the East of England have been there for over two years".

The charity believed numbers could be higher as some types of homelessness, such as sofa-surfing, go unrecorded.

Lesley Burdett, the Norwich service lead at Shelter, said: "It's unimaginable that almost 24,000 people in the East of England 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 the East of England, extortionate private rents combined with a dire lack of genuinely affordable social homes is trapping more and more people in homelessness."

She called upon the government to urgently build "much needed" social homes.

In a statement, 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."

The ministry said it had committed £1bn funding to support homelessness services and would be "building the social and affordable homes we need as part of our Plan for Change".

Other measures include establishing a new inter-ministerial group "dedicated to tackling the root causes of homelessness".

Follow Beds, Herts and Bucks news on BBC Sounds, Facebook, Instagram and X.