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.
