Question to the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government:

To ask the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, what steps her Department is taking to gather accurate data on the number of people sofa surfing.

The English Housing Survey does not collect data on the number of sofa surfers, but does collect data on households who hosted someone in the previous 12 months who would have otherwise been homeless, and publishes these statistics annually.

The total number of households that hosted someone homeless in the past 12 months was 521,000 (2% of households).

By tenure, 3% of private renters (122,000 households) and 3% of social renters (120,000 households) hosted someone homeless in the past 12 months. This proportion was higher than for owner occupiers (2%, 279,000 households).

See The EHS 2022-23 rented sector report, Annex Table 3.21.