Centrepoint · 2025
This report analyses youth homelessness across the UK in the financial year 2023–24, estimating that approximately 118,134 young people (aged 16–24) faced homelessness — a 10% rise on the previous year. Using Freedom of Information data from English local authorities alongside published data from Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland, it finds that only 67% of young people who presented to their local authority were formally assessed. The report also explores how homelessness is experienced differently by gender and nationality, and highlights systemic challenges including local authority gatekeeping, underfunding, and inconsistent implementation of the Homelessness Reduction Act 2017. Recommendations are made to central and local government to improve data collection, ring-fence funding, and extend protections for vulnerable groups.