Homelessness duties outcomes

Last updated: November 2024
Next estimated update: November 2025

What does this indicator show?

When a household becomes homeless, or is at risk of homelessness, their local authority owes them a duty. There are three main types of homelessness duties: 

1. Prevention duty: Local authorities owe prevention duties to help stop households at risk of homelessness losing their accommodation.
2. Relief duty: If a household is homeless, the local authority owes them a relief duty to provide some sort of accommodation.
3. Main duty: The main homelessness duty to provide accommodation (which until 2018 was the only statutory duty owed to homeless households) comes into effect when the relief duty has failed and accommodation has not been secured.

Graphs on this page show how many people were owed homelessness duties in London compared to the rest of England - and what the outcomes of these duties were.

What does it tell us?

As a proportion of the population, more households were assessed for homelessness and were deemed to be owed homelessness duties by local authorities in London than in the rest of England in 2023/24.

What were the outcomes of these duties?

When trying to prevent homelessness, Local Authorities in London were similarly successful in securing accommodation as those in the rest of England (the main duty). However, 1.77 per 1,000 households in London became homeless after being assessed as owed prevention by their Local Authority. And local authorities in London were unable to secure accommodation for 6.65 per 1,000 households in London, after assessing them as owed relief. 

This time series shows how the number of homeless families has changed over the past two decades.

Want to know more?

If you want to explore this data in more depth, check the 'data source and notes' button on the above charts. This will tell you where the data comes from, where you may be able to dig deeper.