Number of children homeless in England highest since records began
Posted 13 Aug 2026
Number of children homeless in England highest since records began
Shelter urges new Prime Minister to turbocharge council house building in Autumn Budget
Today the government has released new statutory homelessness statistics showing the 18th consecutive rise in child homelessness. It comes just weeks after the Prime Minister pledged to end long-term rough sleeping and build a new generation of social rent homes. They reveal:
177,530 children are homeless in temporary accommodation – up 5% in a year and over twice the child population of Leicester.
135,580 households are homeless in temporary accommodation – another record and up 4% in a year.
The three regions that have seen the biggest increase in homelessness in the last year are: Yorkshire and the Humber, up 8%, the North West, up 8% and the South East, up 5%.
1 in 3 households are in temporary accommodation outside their home area
As housing benefit remains frozen, most families facing homelessness simply can’t afford sky high private rents and without enough social homes, they end up trapped in shoddy temporary accommodation.
The new Prime Minister made tackling homelessness a hallmark commitment of his first weeks in office. Shelter is urging him to use the upcoming Autumn Budget to see through his ambitious pledge of delivering the biggest council house building programme since the post-war period.
Sarah Elliot, Chief Executive of Shelter, said:“It is shameful that a record number of children are growing up without a home because decades of political failure have choked off the supply of genuinely affordable social homes.
“Right now, too many children are spending their childhoods in temporary accommodation that is barely fit for a one-night stay, let alone years on end. Whole families are crammed into B&Bs, hostels and tiny bedsits that are freezing and damp in the winter and boiling in the summer.
“October’s Budget is the new Prime Minister’s chance to turn the tide on years of spiralling homelessness and kickstart the council house revolution he promised. He can use the Budget to remove the financial barriers currently holding councils back from building the volume of social rent homes we need to end homelessness.”
In 1969, when housebuilding was booming, nearly half (47%) of all new homes built in England were for social rent - and almost all of them were built by councils. But over recent decades, social house building has plummeted, and councils are instead left to shoulder eye-watering costs of shoddy temporary accommodation, stopping them from building the genuinely affordable social rent homes their communities need.
ENDS
Notes to editors:
Notes to Editors
Statutory homelessness statistics relate to the quarter January – March 2026. They collate information on statutory homelessness applications, duties, and outcomes for local authorities in England, as well as households in temporary accommodation (TA). Unlike other data in this dataset, the TA figures are a snapshot at the end of the quarter (on the 31st March), not a cumulative total of all placements across a quarter. The figures are available at: Statutory homelessness in England: January to March 2026 - GOV.UK
135,580 households were recorded as living in temporary accommodation in England at the end of March 2026. This figure has increased by 3.6% (4,690 households) since the end of March 2025.
177,530 children were recorded to be living in temporary accommodation in England at the end of March 2026. The number of children in temporary accommodation has increased by 5% (8,820 children) since March 2025 and is the highest number since records began (June 2004).
43,180 households were recorded as being placed in TA in another local authority district at the end of March 2026. This figure has increased by 4% (1,690 households) since the end of March 2025. This equates to 32% of all households in temporary accommodation.
The three regions in England that have seen the highest increases in the number of households living in temporary accommodation (TA) in the year since March 2025 are Yorkshire and the Humber, the North West, and the South East. In Yorkshire and the Humber region there were 4,100 households in TA at the end of March 2026, an increase of 7.9% since the end of March 2025. In the North West region there were 9,450 households in TA an increase of 7.5% since the end of March 2025. In the South East region there were 16,890 households in TA at the end of March 2026, an increase of 5.2% since the end of March 2025.
In 1969 there were 306,860 homes built in England, 142,800 (47%) of which were for social rent. Of these, 135,700 were built by councils. These figures are available at: MHCLG Live tables on housing supply: indicators of new supply, Table 244, https://www.gov.uk/government/statistical-data-sets/live-tables-on-house-building.
The total amount spent on temporary accommodation (TA) in England in 2024/25 is published by the Ministry for Housing, Communities and Local Government (MHCLG), Revenue outturn housing services, LA drop-down. The data is available here. Councils spent £2.823858 billion on providing temporary accommodation for homeless households between April 2024 and March 2025.
In its National Plan to End Homelessness, the government has set a target to eliminate the use of B&Bs for families, other than very short-term use in emergencies, by the end of this parliament. Families in B&B were already reducing before this target was set and have continued to go down. However, the number of children in other forms of damaging temporary accommodation, such as private, nightly paid, continues to increase.
There are 86,646 children aged under 18 living in Leicester. This is available at: ONS, Estimates of the population for England and Wales mid-2025, Table MYE2.
About Shelter:Shelter exists to defend the right to a safe home and fight the devastating impact the housing emergency has on people and society. Shelter believes that home is everything. Learn more at www.shelter.org.uk