Maundy Relief – We work on the frontline in the community by responding immediately to need.
Maundy Relief’s ‘Walk for World Homelessness Day’
Today we face a crisis of homelessness in the UK. Research from Shelter in December 2024 highlighted that over 354,000 people in England, including 161,500 children, spent last Christmas without a home – a shocking increase of 14% on the previous year[1].
This figure includes 326,000 people in temporary accommodation, 3,900 people sleeping rough and 16,600 people in hostels or other homeless accommodation.
The number of people who died while homeless in the UK reached a record high last year, according to new figures released today by the Museum of Homelessness, showing that 1,611 homeless people died in 2024[2], a 9% rise in the number of deaths in the previous year.
The homelessness crisis is driven by a number of issues: a lack of affordable social homes, soaring private rents coupled with inadequate housing benefit, and rising levels of evictions.
We welcome the Renters’ Rights Bill and the reform to the Right to Buy discount but call on the government to go further to address the crisis of homelessness by building more social houses. Over 1.3 million households are on social housing waiting lists across the country, a rise of 10% in the last two years[3]. Social housing stock provided by local authorities and housing associations declined by 25% since 1979[4], during which time the UK’s population increased by 20%.
That’s why on Friday 10th October 2025, Maundy Relief’s staff, guests, supporters and volunteers will be walking 4 kilometres from Abbey Street up to the Coppice and back. We want to raise public awareness about the injustice of homelessness, call on the government to build more social housing and raise as much money as possible to help us support people experiencing homelessness.
At Maundy Relief we work closely with those experiencing homelessness in Hyndburn. Many of our service users have experienced homelessness at different points in their lives, and we are there to provide support and advice at every step of the journey towards settled accommodation from providing short-term emergency accommodation to helping with household goods and practical support when someone moves into their new home.
We run many different services to support people, such as our multi-bank, community lunches, benefits advice, and physical and mental health support and counselling. We rely on fundraising and support from our sponsors to fund these different services. If you would like to get involved in raising money for us, or to make a donation, you can get in touch by calling us on 01254 232328.
Thank you to everyone taking part in our Walk for World Homelessness Day!
[1] At least 354,000 people homeless in England today – Shelter England
[2] UK deaths of 1,611 homeless people in 2024 is record high – BBC News
[3] Shelter
[4] Social rented housing (England): past trends and prospects – House of Commons Library (parliament.uk)
