Accredited official statistics

Statutory homelessness in England: July to September 2024 infographic

Published 27 February 2025

Applies to England

1. About our statistics

This document summarises the key findings from the quarterly statistics release for statutory homelessness assessments and activities in England covering the period between 1 July to 30 September 2024.

1.1 Uses and limitations

These statistics can be used:

• To count the number of homelessness duties accepted by local authorities for this quarter and to compare local authorities and regions in England.

• To assess changes in the number of homelessness duties since 2018.

• To understand the causes, circumstances, and characteristics of households owed a duty for this quarter.

• To understand the number and characteristics of households in Temporary Accommodation.

These statistics are not suitable:

• To estimate the total number of people sleeping rough.

• To estimate the total number of people sofa surfing, those in recreational or organised protest, those in squats, or traveller campsites.

• To estimate the households that have yet to make a homelessness application and those who aren’t eligible.

• To compare with other countries in the UK.

• To compare to figures recorded via the P1E

2. Homelessness duties

88,690 households have had initial assessments, a decrease of 2.0% since last year, and a decrease of 4.2% since last quarter.

Chart 1 shows the number of accepted prevention and relief duties from 2019

36,450 households were owed a prevention duty, 44,920 households were owed a relief duty.

Chart 2 shows the household characteristics of those owed a prevention or relief duty

Chart 3 shows the reason for loss of settled home of those owed a prevention or relief duty

The prevention duty ended for 35,380 households, the relief duty ended for 53,570 households.

Chart 4 shows outcomes of duty end for those owed a prevention or relief duty

17,580 households were owed a main duty, up 9.0% from last year

Chart 5 shows the outcomes of main duty assessments

3. Temporary accommodation

Chart 6 shows the number of households in temporary accommodation on the last day of the quarter

126,040 Households in temporary accommodation on 30 September 2024, an increase of 15.7% since last year, and up 2.4% since last quarter.

Map 1 shows the number of households in temporary accommodation per thousand households across England

A total of 164,040 dependent children were living in temporary accommodation on 30th September 2024.

Single households increased by 1.9% and households with children increased by 2.7% from the previous quarter.

There were 19.3 households living in temporary accommodation per 1000 households in London, compared with 2.7 households per 1000 in the Rest of England.

3.1 Types of temporary accommodation

Chart 7 shows the number of households in temporary accommodation on the last day of the quarter, by type of temporary accommodation

84.3% of households with children were in self-contained accommodation (private sector, nightly paid, or local authority or housing association accommodation).

17,620  households were living in B&B accommodation, up 18.5% from last year. 69.4% of these households were single households, up 19.9% from last year.

5,400 households with dependent children were in in B&Bs, up 15.4% from the same date last year.

Of these, 3,470 had been resident for more than the statutory limit of 6 weeks, up 30.0% from last year and down 8.0% from the previous quarter.

4. Further information

• The detailed local authority level tables for this quarter, and an England level data time series are available to download alongside this release on our tables on homelessness page

• See performance dashboard for local comparisons of homelessness performance data