YOUTH homelessness has hit a new record after rising by 6 per cent – nearly 7,000 – in a year, new research has shown.

The rise marks the third year in a row that youth homelessness increased in Britain, Centrepoint said.

The charity warned of young people sleeping on night buses and strangers’ sofas as it published the worrying statistics today.

It found there were 123,934 young people – aged 16-24 – facing homelessness between April 2024 and March 2025.

This was up from 116,947 in the previous 12 months.

Centrepoint’s annual databank is made up of publicly available data and responses to freedom of information requests to national governments and local authorities.

Wales had the largest percentage increase of 8 per cent, from 5,433 to 5,856, while England had a 6 per cent rise from 101,184 to 107,585 and Scotland rose 2 per cent year-on-year, from 7,434 to 7,604.

Centrepoint’s director of policy and prevention Balbir Kaur Chatrik said: “Youth homelessness is at record levels, and this is another significant increase in the number of young people without a safe place to stay.

“The experience of homelessness is incredibly traumatic for anyone — but it has a particular effect on young people.”

In December, the government published its long-awaited homelessness strategy for England, pledging the number of long-term rough sleepers will be halved in the next five years as well as more households being prevented from becoming homeless.

Ms Chatrik said: “We now urgently need to see a move from planning to delivery because, until we do, thousands more will be left waiting for meaningful action on night buses, strangers’ sofas, or worse.”

The Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government was contacted for comment.

Young people face widespread landlord discrimination when trying to move from homelessness accommodation into private rented housing, according to charities.

Organisations in the Every Youth Network have warned the Renters’ Rights Act fails to address housing access barriers.

Its chief executive Nicholas Connolly said: “Charities in our network urge the government to record and monitor refusal patterns among landlords to identify discrimination, allow anonymous reporting of discriminatory practises, and create government-backed or local authority backed guarantor schemes to prevent blanket refusals based solely on a young person’s lack of a guarantor.”

A Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government spokesperson said: “These figures underline why it is so important that action is taken to end the unacceptable homelessness crisis we inherited.

“This won’t be fixed overnight but we’ve already taken decisive action by ending Section 21 ‘no fault’ evictions, committing billions of new funding as part of the National Plan to End Homelessness, and delivering the biggest increase in affordable housing in a generation.”