New figures released today show that between October and December 2025, record numbers of people were forced to sleep rough in London.

The statistics from the Combined Homelessness and Information Network (CHAIN) also show that:

• Overall, 4,841 people were forced to sleep rough in this period – a record high.
• The number of people living on the streets is now 830 – the highest number on record and an 18% rise on the same period a year before.
• The number of people sleeping rough for the first time in London between October and December (2,250) has risen 6% compared to the same period last year.

With housing benefit frozen and failing to keep up with rising rents, and with not enough social homes being built, more and more people are being forced into homelessness – including sleeping on the streets. Rough sleeping is the most visible and dangerous forms of homelessness, with the charity’s own research showing that nine in ten people sleeping rough in England have experienced violence or abuse.

While the Westminster Government’s National Plan to End Homelessness included a number of measures aimed at reducing rough sleeping, the strategy failed to fully address the factors pushing people into homelessness in the first place – including the affordability crisis in the private rented sector and the chronic shortage of social homes. Without the delivery of social and genuinely affordable homes, rough sleeping in the capital – and across the country – will continue to rise.

Matt Downie, Chief Executive at Crisis, said: "The fact that rough sleeping in London is once again at record highs is simply shameful. This is now a normalised emergency – 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.

“This is a reality that no one should have to experience – moving between night buses and 24-hour cafes, staying awake in doorways and being exposed to unimaginable violence and cruelty.

“Over 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. Although 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’s crucial that they address the reasons driving people there in the first place – chiefly the lack of genuinely affordable homes.  Support services also need to be expanded so that no one is left facing life on the streets.”

-Ends-

Notes to Editor

About CHAIN

Today, Friday 30 January 2026, the Combined Homelessness and Information Network (CHAIN) statistics have been published, showing levels of rough sleeping across London for the period October to December 2025.

Conducted by outreach teams in regular contact with people on the streets, CHAIN is considered the most thorough approach to collecting data on people sleeping rough.

In the CHAIN reports, people sleeping rough are grouped into three categories:

New rough sleepers	Those who had not been contacted by outreach teams rough sleeping before the period
Living on the streets	Those who have had a high number of contacts over 3 weeks or more which suggests they are living on the streets
Intermittent rough sleepers	People who were seen rough sleeping before the period began at some point, and contacted in the period - but not regularly enough to be ‘living on the streets’.

From 2025/26 Q1 (Jan-Mar) onwards, CHAIN have adjusted the methodology for quantifying the number of people “living on the streets”. Previously, people who were members of the “RS205 entrenched rough sleepers cohort” were counted as “living on the streets” during the period even if they had only been seen bedded down once, whereas people not in this cohort were only counted as “living on the streets” if they had been seen bedded down five or more times across at least three weeks. This change could mean that the number of people counted as “living on the streets” as presented here may be slightly lower than it would have been using the previous methodology, though it is noted in the report that the anticipated impact of this change is minor.

Read and download the latest CHAIN figures here: https://data.london.gov.uk/dataset/chain-reports

Greater London Authority’s plan for tackling rough sleeping

The Mayor of London has committed to working with the Westminster Government to set London on a course to end rough sleeping by 2030. A new Rough Sleeping Plan of Action will set the framework for achieving this goal.

Read more about the Plan of Action here.