LONDON: Young people and families with children are increasingly facing homelessness, according to a study, which says rising numbers of people are finding themselves without a roof over their heads.

The report, by academics from Heriot-Watt University and the University of York, says all forms of homelessness are continuing to rise in England, and argues that “deepening [social] benefit cuts are likely to have a much more dramatic impact on homelessness”.

It concludes: “All of the indications are that the expanding risk of homelessness is heavily concentrated ... on the poorest and most disadvantaged sections of the community, who lack the financial and/or social ‘equity’ that enables most people to deal with work or relationship crises without becoming homeless.”

The report says national rough sleeper numbers rose by 23 per cent in the year to autumn 2011, from 1,768 to 2,181 — “a more dramatic growth dynamic than anything seen since the 1990s”. The number of families who end up asking for assistance from local authorities because they are about to lose their homes rose from 40,020 in 2009/10 to 50,290 in 2011/12. “This recent increase in statutory homelessness has disproportionately affected families with children,” the report says.

The capping of housing benefits [social benefits for rent] is “generating by far the largest difficulties in central London”, it says.

“In central London [the effect of capping benefits] will be to drive up the number of ‘out-of-area’ placements of statutorily homeless families to cheaper parts of the country.”

On Tuesday the Guardian revealed that as cuts reduce the number of properties affordable to people on benefits, more than 20 London local councils had rented properties as far away as Corby, Cornwall, Blackpool and Newcastle to house London families that could end up on the streets. Councils stress that they attempt to place people “voluntarily”.

By arrangement with the Guardian