Hundreds of young people who have approached councils for help with homelessness are being illegally turned away, the Guardian has reported.
Helpline operators at homelessness charity Centrepoint recorded 564 instances of council officials ‘gatekeeping’ services in the past 14 months.
Some people were rejected because it was wrongly thought that they had no local connection or had made themselves homeless.
The charity also reported 82 cases of homeless people aged between 16 and 25 who had children or were pregnant being turned away by local authorities.
Senior helpline manager Paul Brocklehurst said the blame could not lie with councils alone.
‘Decades of chronic underfunding from central government have forced many to make impossible decisions around who gets what support,’ he said.
This week, it was revealed that the number of households living in temporary accommodation reached 117,450 in March – the highest since 1998 when records began.
