MORE than 200,000 households in England will be homeless this Christmas, new research from Crisis revealed today.

Those affected will be forced to sleep on the streets, hunker down in sheds and garages, or stay in unstable situations such as in B&Bs or on sofas, the annual study said.

Homelessness has been rising over the last five years, reaching a peak just before the Covid-19 pandemic when the number of homeless households grew by nearly 12,000 between 2018 and the end of 2019.