13th October 2023

Earlier today, the Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities published its annual statistics on statutory homelessness in England. These figures show that between April 2022 and March 2023, almost 300,000 households were owed a homelessness duty by their council due to either experiencing or being threatened with homelessness, a 6.8% increase on the previous year.

Of these, 157,640 households were assessed as experiencing homelessness (an 8.6% increase) and 140,790 were assessed as at risk of homelessness (a 4.8% increase). In London, 57,150 households were owed a duty, up 10%.

Many of these numbers are not only higher than last year’s levels, but also above what was seen before COVID-19.

Jo Carter, CEO of Glass Door Homeless Charity says:

“These extremely worrying statistics reflect what we are seeing daily on the front-line. The increasing unaffordability of the private rented sector is pushing more and more people towards homelessness. To address this housing crisis it is vital that the government takes the immediate step of raising Local Housing Allowance (LHA) rates to cover the bottom 30% of rents in a given area.

LHA rates have been frozen for the last four years, while rents have significantly increased in this time, meaning that a rapidly growing number of people are finding it impossible to find somewhere safe to live. This morning, we joined with 18 other organisations in writing an open letter to the Chancellor of the Exchequer laying out why it is vital that the LHA is un-frozen.

As well as taking this immediate step, we call on the government to pass the Renters (Reform) Bill, which would make some long-needed changes to the Private Rented Sector, and to address the deeper causes of the housing crisis by significantly increasing the supply of social housing.”

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The full statistics on statutory homelessness in England for the 2022-23 financial year can be found here and the text of the letter to the Chancellor that we signed can be found here.