More people were sleeping rough in the capital at the end of 2023 than at any period in the past decade.

A record total of 4,389 people slept on the streets of London between October and December 2023 – up almost a quarter (23%) since the same period in 2022 – according to CHAIN, the UK’s most detailed rough sleeping database.

More than half of these people (2,283) were sleeping rough for the first time, the second highest quarterly figure ever reported.

The director of social change at Homeless Link, Fiona Colley, said it was ‘devastating’ that a record number of people had been exposed to the trauma of sleeping rough in London during the winter.

She said the shortage of affordable homes and ‘rocketing’ rents were not giving people a ‘fighting chance’, while inflation and the crisis in local government funding left homelessness services struggling to keep their doors open.

The Mayor of London also reported that of the 1,282 people helped through the Severe Weather Emergency Protocol this January, 19% said they were newly recognised refugees.

Meanwhile, Homeless Link reported a ‘disproportionate increase’ in the number of Eritrean and Sudanese people sleeping on London’s streets at the end of last year.

City Hall raised concerns that the Government’s 28-day move-on period for new refugees was giving them no time to access universal credit, find a job and receive wages, or secure private rented accommodation, forcing many to sleep rough.

A spokesperson for the Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities said: ‘This Government has made the unprecedented commitment to end rough sleeping, and we have given London boroughs over £191m through the rough sleeping initiative programme to tackle homelessness and rough sleeping.’

The Kerslake Commission on Homelessness and Rough Sleeping has warned that the Government will fail on its pledge to end rough sleeping within the current Parliament because of a ‘chronic shortage’ of affordable housing and support services.