MORE than a quarter of a million people in England are homeless and their numbers could be swelled by a “rising tide” of evictions this winter, housing charity Shelter warns in a report published today.

It said that the government’s scrapping of legal protections from eviction during the Covid-19 crisis meant that the 274,000 people currently homeless “will be joined by thousands more.”

The removal of the protections has left private landlords free to turn families onto the streets.

One in every 206 people in England is homeless, including 126,000 children, Shelter’s shocking figures show.

In London, one in every 53 people is homeless, with high numbers also found in Brighton and Hove and in Manchester.

Of the more than 274,000 people believed to be homeless on any given night, 2,700 are sleeping rough, nearly 15,000 single people are in direct-access hostels and nearly 250,000 people are living in temporary accommodation, most of whom are families, Shelter said.

Shelter chief executive Polly Neate described the figures as “shameful” and warned that “with Covid protections now gone, thousands more will be joining them.”

Maintenance worker Tomasz and his wife and child have been living in a shed in the garden of an emergency hostel in Ilford since being evicted in August when they could no longer afford their privately rented home.

Tomasz said: “This Christmas, I’m telling the kids that Santa will still be able to find them.

“I’m trying to make it better by putting up a small Christmas tree on the shelf and a Christmas light in the window.

“I want to try and make it as normal as possible, but it’s so stressful and depressing.”

Shelter warned that the true number of homeless people was likely to be higher than its figures because some types of homelessness such as “sofa surfing” go undocumented.

An Acorn spokesperson told the Star: “The government continues to claim that they are serious about ending homelessness, yet at every step, they do all they can to make it worse.

“The government could end homelessness tomorrow if they actually wanted to, but it’s clear that they don’t.

“The change we need won’t be handed to us from above out of kindness; the only solution is for people to get organised and fight for it.”

The government said that tackling homelessness was an “absolute priority” and that it had committed more than £2 billion in funding over the next three years.