Rough sleeping at a year’s high as housing shortage strains Burnham pledge
There were 8,748 people sleeping rough in England in June, the most since November 2025 and nearly 1,000 more than in January, and only 15% of them had been found accommodation by the end of the month, the lowest share since August 2025. A record 135,600 households were in temporary accommodation in March. The homelessness minister, Florence Eshalomi, said: “We cannot force people off the streets.”
Andy Burnham made ending rough sleeping “my first instruction” on 20 July, backing it with £442m for an “everyone in for Christmas” drive and a further £432m from March 2027. The temporary-accommodation total is about 90% higher than a decade ago and 4% up on the year, which is why charities say the pledge will founder without housing to move people into. The frozen local housing allowance is the “big sticking point”, Ms Eshalomi conceded: “I’ve been an MP since 2019. I’ve been raising it since then.” Nineteen charities including Trussell, the Joseph Rowntree Foundation and Shelter wrote to ministers before the budget to say the allowance, frozen since April 2024, now falls short of rents by a record 23.3%, around £200 a month in London and £100 elsewhere, and that ending the freeze would cost £1.7bn; JRF estimates renters will be £700 a year worse off by 2029 with 50,000 pushed into poverty. Probation officers warned on Saturday that early-release prisoners are being discharged onto the streets, with the next tranche due on Tuesday. Watch the Christmas count: the pledge is measured against it, and the June figure is the baseline.