Homelessness Monitor

The most recent Homelessness Monitor: England 2023 was commissioned by Crisis and led by Heriot-Watt University, as part of the Homelessness Monitor series, a longitudinal study providing independent analysis of the homelessness impacts of recent economic and policy developments in England. The research takes stock of homelessness in 2023 and the five year period before this. It also highlights emerging trends and forecasts some of the likely future changes, identifying the developments likely to have the most significant impacts on homelessness.

Key findings

These findings come from research methods including a survey of local authorities, interviews with key informants in the public and voluntary sectors, and a statistical modelling exercise that estimates levels of 'core' homelessness and projects trends in these forms of homelessness into the future. 

• Some 290,000 eligible households sought help from local authorities on grounds of homelessness in 2021/22. While those judged at risk of homelessness within 56 days increased by 10% over the year, applicants assessed as actually homeless fell by 4%. Nonetheless a large majority of local authority survey respondents (85%) perceived that homelessness service ‘footfall’ had increased in the preceding year - the highest number to say this in any year since the Homelessness Monitor: England local authority survey began. 88% of councils reported an increase in requests for support from those evicted from the private rented sector while 93% anticipated a further increase over the coming year.
  
  
• Since bottoming out in 2010/11, total temporary accommodation placements had more than doubled to over 100,000 households by 31st December 2022. Within this, Bed and Breakfast hotel placements have risen more than five-fold since their 2009 nadir. Having increased sharply during the early part of the pandemic, Bed and Breakfast placements once again climbed steeply during 2022, up by 32% in the year to Q4 2022.
  
  
• Key informants reported that opportunities for upstream homelessness prevention are contracting because of sustained cuts to public services, a reduction in the supply of affordable rental properties, and a squeeze on household budgets. Deep cuts to Discretionary Housing Payments have further constrained the ability of local authorities to prevent homelessness.
  
  
• Following several years of decline, the number of people seen sleeping rough in England grew in 2022. At 3,069 in November of that year, recorded rough sleeping was 26% up on the equivalent figure twelve months earlier. London-specific data also indicates rising rough sleeping since 2021, with around half of those sleeping on the streets of the capital non-UK nationals, many of whom will have No Recourse to Public Funds or other restricted eligibility for statutory support.
  
  
• The launch of a refreshed Rough Sleeping Strategy in September 2022 was welcomed by key informants, particularly with regard to its confirmation of sustained investment in the Rough Sleeping Initiative. However, acute concerns remain about addressing rough sleeping amongst people with No Recourse to Public Funds or other restricted eligibility to statutory support, as pandemic-associated emergency accommodation options for this group have contracted sharply after the ending of specialist public health funding in April 2022.
  
  
• 'Core homelessness’ in England – a concept which captures the most acute forms of homelessness – is estimated to have totalled 242,000 in 2022, compared to 206,000 people affected a decade ago. This means that on a given night, 1 in 100 households in England are experiencing the worst forms of homelessness.
  
  
• Baseline forecasts show core homelessness rising significantly in the immediate future, with overall core homelessness in 2024 one fifth higher than 2020 levels. Current drivers of these increases relate primarily to inflation squeezing real incomes and increasing poverty and destitution, alongside rising private rents and evictions, and declining social rented lettings.
  
  
• In the shorter term, the most effective policies for reducing core homelessness would be allocation of a significant proportion of social lettings to core homeless households, increasing the level of the Local Housing Allowance, and maximising prevention activity to the level of the higher performing local authorities.

A full technical report outlining the core homelessness methodology has also been published here.

Reference

Fitzpatrick, S., Bramley, G., McMordie, L., Pawson, H., Watts-Cobbe, B., Young, G.,  (2023) The Homelessness Monitor: England 2023. London: Crisis.  

The most recent Homelessness Monitor Wales: 2025 was commissioned by Crisis and led by Heriot-Watt. This is part of the Homelessness Monitor series, which provides an independent analysis of the homelessness impacts of recent economic and policy developments across Great Britain. 

This fifth Wales-focused Monitor report takes a look at where homelessness stands in Wales, focusing particularly on the implementation of the Ending Homelessness in Wales High Level Action Plan, including planned extensive legal reforms, as well as the ongoing impacts of the cost of living crisis and pressures on temporary accommodation. 

Key findings 

These findings come from research methods including a survey of local authorities, interviews with key informants in the public and voluntary sectors, which took place in summer 2024. In addition, the research includes a statistical modelling exercise that estimates levels of 'core' homelessness and projects trends in these forms of homelessness into the future.  

• Wales faces a challenging social-economic context in which to address homelessness. Persistent barriers to improving responses to homelessness include a lack of suitable housing options and a lack of staff capacity within local authority teams. 

• The total number of households experiencing the most severe forms of homelessness (“core” homelessness, e.g. rough sleeping, sofa surfing, staying in hostels, refuges or unsuitable forms of temporary accommodation) is estimated to have stood at 12,250 households. Although rates of core homelessness in Wales are lower than in England, they have risen more sharply in Wales than in either England or Scotland. 

• If current policies continue (not accounting for the proposed legal reforms), core homelessness will continue to rise in the short to medium term, and increase even more sharply in the longer-term. 

• Modelling shows a comprehensive policy reform programme could reduce core homelessness in Wales by half compared to the baseline scenario by 2041, and drive unsuitable temporary accommodation down by 83%. Of those modelled, the most effective policies for reducing core homelessness in the immediate term are found to be increasing the share of social lettings to homeless households, raising Local Housing Allowance, and making changes to Universal Credit and other benefits to reduce destitution. 

• The proposed legal reforms in the ‘White Paper on ending homelessness in Wales’ garnered widespread support from local authorities and key informants, particularly proposals to introduce new prevention duties to wider public bodies, and the extension of the local authority prevention duty to six months. Proposals to remove or alter intentionality, priority need and local connection tests generated concern from some local authorities who felt these changes would increase demand on their already over-stretched services, but were seen by key informants as essential to lowering barriers to assistance. 

• Stakeholders supported the strengthening of homelessness prevention measures. This is reinforced by the modelling, which shows the limitations on prevention measures within the existing legislation. 

Click on the PDFs below to read the executive summary or the full report in English and Welsh.

Y monitor digartrefedd: Cymru 2025

Technical report – the Homelessness Monitor Wales 2025

Reference: 

Watts-Cobbe, B., Bramley, G., Sims, R., Pawson, H., Young, G., Fitzpatrick, S. (2025) The Homelessness Monitor: Wales 2025. London: Crisis. 

The Homelessness Monitor series provides an independent analysis of the homelessness impacts of recent economic and policy developments across Great Britain, including a survey of local authorities and interviews with key informants from the sector.

This fifth Scotland-focused Monitor report provides a state-of-the-nation look at homelessness in Scotland, and focuses in particular on ongoing implementation of the Scottish Government’s Ending Homelessness Together Action Plan, as well as the homelessness impacts of the ongoing cost of living crisis.

Key findings

Key research findings

Homelessness trends

• Most local authority homeless services are reporting increased footfall from service users in the past year, with more than half saying this has increased significantly.
• The most severe and immediate forms of homelessness (“core” homelessness e.g., rough sleeping, sofa surfing, staying in hostels, refuges or unsuitable forms of temporary accommodation) have risen by 11% since 2020 to an estimated 18,400 households.
• Without action, these forms of homelessness are predicted to increase by one-third by 2026, driven by housing market pressures, a cost of living crisis, fixed Local Housing Allowance rates, low levels of social rented lettings and weak economic performance. After that they are expected fall back. A comprehensive programme of measures could reduce core homelessness by 56% in four years’ time (2026) and 50% against projected levels in the long term (2041).
• Most local authority survey respondents (22 of 30) believed that the cost of living crisis had led to an increase in homelessness in their area, despite UK and Scottish Government support initiatives, with an even higher number (26 of 30) expecting the crisis to drive further increases during 2023/24.

Reference:

Watts, B., Bramley, G., Fitzpatrick, S., Pawson, H., McMordie, L & Young, G. (2024) The Homelessness Monitor: Scotland 2021, London: Crisis. 

The Homelessness Monitor: Northern Ireland 2020 is the third annual report of an independent study, funded by Crisis and the Joseph Rowntree Foundation, of the homelessness impacts of recent economic and policy developments in Northern Ireland.

Key findings

• The total number of homelessness presentations in Northern Ireland has been virtually static over the past few years, but Full Duty Applicant cases have been steadily rising, increasing by 26% since 2009/10.
• There has been a perceived rise in rough sleeping in recent years. This perception is partly related to a visible increase in “street activity” including street begging and street drinking. Nevertheless, given the lack of any historical series it is difficult to judge whether rough sleeping in Northern Ireland is, in fact, changing in scale in any sustained way. Northern Ireland Housing Executive put the November 2018 number of rough sleepers across the jurisdiction at 38. Of these, 16 were in Belfast – up from only five a year earlier. Nonetheless, numbers of people rough sleeping in Northern Ireland remains relatively small in scale compared with other parts of the UK and with the Republic of Ireland.
• The overall scale of annual temporary accommodation placements has oscillated within a fairly narrow band over recent years in Northern Ireland. Nevertheless, the figure for 2017/18 was the highest of the decade, at just over 3,000.
• The roll-out of Housing Solutions and Support across Northern Ireland has generally been welcomed, with the associated enhanced data capture also felt to be an encouraging development. While the content of the Northern Ireland Housing Executive Homelessness Strategy 2017-2022 commanded general consensus, concerns remain with regard to implementation. The shift from a “rough sleeping” to a “Chronic Homelessness Action Plan” under the auspices of the Strategy received an enthusiastic reception.
• In 2017/18 lettings to homeless households accounted for no less than 88% of all Housing Executive lettings to new tenants, as compared with 39% of all social lets to new tenants in Scotland, and only 21% of all local authority lets to new tenants in England
• However, lettings by social landlords have been on a downward trajectory for some time, whilst the number of applicants in housing stress has risen. This suggests that the supply of social rented housing is one of the main pressure points in the Northern Irish housing system, and this is further evidenced by the frequency with which private tenants cite the length of social landlord waiting lists as a reason for opting for private renting.
• The private rented sector has grown enormously over the past 20 years and is now a similar size to the social rented sector in Northern Ireland. Its growth has moderated in recent years. There is little evidence of “no fault” evictions rising to anything like the extent that has occurred in England in recent years, and the loss of rented accommodation is cited as a reason for homelessness acceptances in only a relatively modest proportion of total Full Duty Applicant cases (13%).
  In 2018 all Local Housing Allowance (LHA) rates fell below the 30th percentile, and in no broad rental market area (BRMA) were more than 27% of properties advertised at below the LHA rate with many tenants reporting that Housing Benefit did not cover the cost of rent.
• The Welfare Reform “mitigation” package introduced in stages in 2016 and 2017 has succeeded in protecting many low-income households, especially social sector tenants, from significant reductions in their benefits. However, this protection is due to come to an end in March 2020.
• The Homelessness Monitor Northern Ireland 2020 has been published at a moment of change as the Assembly and Executive returns after a three year hiatus to take responsibility for driving key social and economic policies and programmes, and the impact of the UK’s exit from the European Union becomes clearer. Whilst currently uncertain, the impact on homelessness, if any, will need to be considered as part of any discussion about tackling and ending homelessness.

Reference

Fitzpatrick, S., Pawson, H., Bramely, G., Wood, J., Stephens, M., Frey, J. & McMordie, L (2020) The Homelessness Monitor: Northern Ireland 2020. London: Crisis.