Rough sleeping across England at highest level since 2010

The number of people sleeping out on the streets of England has risen to the highest number recorded since 2010, according to figures released by the government this month.

At least 4,793 were estimated to be sleeping rough on a single night in autumn 2025 across England, exceeding the previous peak of 4,751 in 2017.

“This is the fourth annual increase in a row, increasing three per cent since 2024, and 171 per cent higher than 2010 when the snapshot approach was introduced,” says the Ministry for Housing Communities and Local Government.

Forty-three per cent of all people sleeping rough on a single night in England were recorded in London and the South East.

An estimated 1,277 people were sleeping on the streets across Greater London — down from the 1,318 people counted the year before.

In the City of Westminster and the London Borough of Camden, the numbers were the second highest ever recorded, and the two local authority areas took first and second place in the table of the the highest number of people sleeping out in the open.

In Westminster 360 people were counted in autumn 2025, a drop compared to 388 a year before. In Camden 134 were counted, two more than the 132 counted in 2024.

Matt Downie, chief executive of Crisis, said the figures for England “paint a bleak picture of the state of the nation”.

“People are being forced to sleep on the streets at unprecedented levels, exposed to danger and violence. Thousands more people are then hidden from the official statistics, particularly women forced to sleep rough.

“The Government must drastically increase the supply of genuinely affordable homes. We need to pull every lever possible to deliver more social housing, including bringing forward investment to build social homes now, setting minimum targets and repurposing empty homes.

“There was a net loss of nearly 4,000 social homes in England last year, twice as many as we lost the year before. With thousands of people, including children, without a safe and stable home, ministers need to be delivering up to 90,000 new social homes a year — not moving backwards.

“And to prevent homelessness increasing yet further, the Government could also decide tomorrow to unfreeze housing benefit so more people can avoid the trauma of losing their home. We need to see homelessness being treated like the national emergency it is.”

Rough sleeping snapshot in England: autumn 2025.

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