{"id":730727,"date":"2026-01-30T11:35:12","date_gmt":"2026-01-30T11:35:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/730727\/"},"modified":"2026-01-30T11:35:12","modified_gmt":"2026-01-30T11:35:12","slug":"rough-sleeping-in-london-hits-new-record-high","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/730727\/","title":{"rendered":"Rough sleeping in London hits new record high"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Labour government launched its own homelessness strategy<\/a> in December, promising to halve rough sleeping nationally by 2029.<\/p>\n

Matt Downie, chief executive at Crisis<\/a>, said the number of people living on the streets is now a \u201cnormalised emergency\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe fact that rough sleeping in London is once again at record highs is simply shameful. This is now a normalised emergency \u2013 years of rising homelessness has desensitised us to the stark reality that thousands of people have nowhere safe to stay and have to sleep on the streets,\u201d said Downie.<\/p>\n

\u201cOver the years, a failure to invest in support services and to build new social homes at anywhere close to the scale required has gotten us to this point.<\/p>\n

\u201cAlthough the Westminster government has pledged to halve the number of people sleeping rough long-term, with record numbers of people living on the streets it\u2019s crucial that they address the reasons driving people there in the first place.\u201d<\/p>\n

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Labour\u2019s plan to reduce homelessness will set targets to prevent the number of people becoming homeless after leaving prisons, hospitals and other public institutions.<\/p>\n

Advertising helps fund Big Issue\u2019s mission to end poverty<\/p>\n

The latest Chain statistics showed a 7% rise in the number of ex-prisoners spotted on the streets through October to December last year, rising from 958 people in the same period in 2024 to 1,025 people.<\/p>\n

The number of people with an armed forces history on the street also rose 16% year-on-year from 96 people to 112.<\/p>\n

The statistics also showed a 40% increase in the number of new people sleeping rough who have left hostels or supported housing.<\/p>\n

John Glenton, chief care and support officer at Riverside<\/a>, said: \u201cIt is deeply concerning that more people could end up homeless or sleeping rough because of the financial crisis in the supported housing sector.\u201d<\/p>\n

There was also a 6% increase in the number of care leavers sleeping rough. Frontline workers spotted 268 people with care experience \u2013 6% higher than the 268 counted in 2024.<\/p>\n

Dr Lisa Doyle, head of policy and public affairs at Centrepoint<\/a> said: \u201cCare leavers are some of the most vulnerable people in London and it\u2019s shocking they are continuing to slip through the net, rather than getting the support they need and are entitled to.\u201d<\/p>\n

Advertising helps fund Big Issue\u2019s mission to end poverty<\/p>\n

However, the number of young people aged 25 and under sleeping on the capital\u2019s streets has fallen by 4%, down to 396 people from 414 a year earlier.<\/p>\n

But Daniel Dumoulin, director of development at Depaul UK, said the charity\u2019s polling found sky-high rents and cost of living in London has nearly one in two young people (47%) worried about becoming homeless in the next year.<\/p>\n

Dumoulin said: \u201cWe know that young people are among the most vulnerable caught in this crisis, and the scale of the problem facing young Londoners is deeply concerning.\u201d<\/p>\n

Read more:<\/strong><\/p>\n

Mayor of London Sadiq Khan has pledged to end rough sleeping in London and told Big Issue last year that he didn\u2019t expect to see falling numbers on the street until 2026.<\/p>\n

Last May he laid out his plan of action<\/a> to turn things around, including refurbishing up to 500 new empty homes, a new Ending Homelessness Hub and a dedicated rough sleeping prevention phone line.<\/p>\n

Advertising helps fund Big Issue\u2019s mission to end poverty<\/p>\n

But for Khan and the Labour government, the new year must bring progress to reduce the number of people living on the streets or without a stable home.<\/p>\n

\u201c2026 must be the year<\/a> we turn the corner on shameful levels of rough sleeping,\u201d said Fiona Colley, director of social change at Homeless Link<\/a>, the national membership body for frontline homelessness services.<\/p>\n

\u201cLondon\u2019s ambitious rough sleeping plan of action is now up and running, and the recently launched national plan to end homelessness<\/a> commits the Westminster government to halving long-term rough sleeping by the end of the parliament.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe now need a concerted effort at a national and local level to deliver both immediate and long-term solutions to totally unacceptable levels of homelessness. It\u2019s time to move from strategy to delivery.\u201d<\/p>\n

Do you have a story to tell or opinions to share about this?\u00a0Get in touch and tell us more<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n

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Buy from your local Big Issue vendor every week \u2013 and always take the magazine. It\u2019s how vendors earn with dignity and how we fund our work to end poverty.<\/strong><\/p>\n

You can also support online with a\u00a0vendor support kit<\/a>\u00a0or a\u00a0magazine subscription<\/a>. Thank you for standing with Big Issue vendors.<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Labour government launched its own homelessness strategy in December, promising to halve rough sleeping nationally by 2029.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":539891,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[7757],"tags":[748,393,4884,6332,6333,257,12,17562,14252,16,15],"class_list":["post-730727","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-london","tag-britain","tag-england","tag-great-britain","tag-homelessness","tag-housing","tag-london","tag-news","tag-rough-sleeping","tag-sadiq-khan","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/115983844989150131","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/730727","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=730727"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/730727\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/539891"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=730727"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=730727"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=730727"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}