Unfair housing law fuels record high rough sleeping

As new figures show a record number of people sleeping rough in England, The Salvation Army warns that the Government’s plan to end homelessness fails to address housing legislation that is fuelling this crisis.

The annual Rough Sleeping Snapshot in England, published today, recorded 4,793 people sleeping rough on a single night in 2025. This is up 3 per cent on the previous year and the highest since 2010 when this method of recording was introduced.

To help tackle rough sleeping, the church and charity is calling for legal reform of the system used to decide who is in priority need for emergency accommodation, which excludes thousands of people who are homeless.

The Salvation Army’s Director of Homelessness Services, Nick Redmore, said: “Although the Government has demonstrated genuine commitment to tackling homelessness, the crisis will persist unless it reforms the inequitable system that determines who receives support to escape life on the streets”.

“While local councils in England are legally required to prioritise people with the greatest housing need—such as pregnant women, families with dependent children, and people with disabilities—this does not mean others are merely further back in the queue. In practice, rigid legal criteria prevent thousands from qualifying for emergency accommodation altogether.

"The result, as these latest Government figures show, is a growing number of people with no choice but to sleep rough, sometimes for years, which has severe and far‑reaching consequences for individuals and for society. People forced to live on the streets are exposed daily to cold, violence, poor sanitation and untreated health conditions, placing them at high risk of illness, injury and early death.”

The Salvation Army is calling for:

• a change to homelessness legislation in England so that rough sleepers are added to the priority need list for emergency and then longer-term housing but, in the long term, for the priority need list to be abolished so everyone who is homeless can be helped;
• investment in more housing stock, especially social housing, to meet the needs of the growing numbers of people experiencing homelessness.