Being asked to leave by family or friends caused 139 Sevenoaks homelessness cases in 2025-26, up from 89. Hospital discharge cases rose from 16 to 58.
Being told to leave by family or friends is now the biggest single reason people in Sevenoaks District ask the council for homelessness help. It accounted for 139 cases in 2025-26, up from 89 two years earlier.
The figures come from Sevenoaks District Council’s own review of homelessness, published for its Housing and Health Advisory Committee on Tuesday 6 October. The review also shows a sharp rise in people leaving hospital with nowhere to go: 58 cases last year, against 16 in 2023-24. (Sevenoaks District Council, Homelessness and Rough Sleeper Strategy Review, September 2026)
The review underpins the council’s new Homelessness and Rough Sleeper Strategy for 2026 to 2031, which goes to Cabinet on 20 October and Full Council on 1 December. (Sevenoaks District Council, Homelessness and Rough Sleeper Strategy 2026-2031, committee report)
Why people are losing their homes
The review breaks down homelessness cases by the reason given. The total rose from 372 in 2023-24 to 406 in 2024-25 and 558 in 2025-26, an increase of half in two years. (Sevenoaks District Council, Homelessness and Rough Sleeper Strategy Review)
| Reason | 2023-24 | 2024-25 | 2025-26 |
|---|---|---|---|
| Friends or family no longer willing to accommodate | 89 | 98 | 139 |
| End of a private tenancy | 73 | 79 | 94 |
| Domestic abuse | 60 | 58 | 72 |
| Left prison | 40 | 67 | 69 |
| Left hospital | 16 | 37 | 58 |
| Relationship breakdown | 25 | 23 | 39 |
| End of a social housing tenancy | 7 | 9 | 6 |
| Other | 62 | 35 | 81 |
| Total | 372 | 406 | 558 |
The council says friends and family exclusion has been the leading reason for emergency temporary accommodation placements since April 2025. Senior managers raised the volume of these cases in November 2025. The council then compared notes with Ashford, Dover, Maidstone, Swale and Tunbridge Wells councils.
Its response is a plan to contact the person asking someone to leave, confirm the circumstances and seek more notice where possible. Officers can also offer mediation, and furniture or help with overcrowding where that would let a household stay. A new Housing Reviews and Visiting Officer now makes home visits where someone is at risk of being excluded. (Sevenoaks District Council, Homelessness and Rough Sleeper Strategy Review)
Help sought, and duties owed
The council received 1,053 approaches for housing help in 2025-26. Of those, 304 households were assessed as owed a statutory homelessness duty. That included 116 owed a prevention duty, because they were at risk of homelessness within 56 days, and 89 who were already homeless and owed a relief duty. (Sevenoaks District Council, Homelessness and Rough Sleeper Strategy Review)
The household tables in the same review tell a different part of the story. Relief duties, owed once someone is already homeless, fell from 135 in 2024-25 to 81 in 2025-26. Only 19 of those 81 were families with children, down from 48. The council reads the wider data as a sign that its prevention work is catching more people before they lose their home. (Sevenoaks District Council, Homelessness and Rough Sleeper Strategy Review)
Among the people owed a homelessness duty last year, 129 were aged 18 to 34 and 144 were aged 35 to 64. The rest were 65 or over.
Temporary accommodation and what it costs
More stays in temporary accommodation are being recorded, though most are short. The review’s figures for people owed an emergency accommodation duty show:
- stays under six months: 116 in 2023-24, 132 in 2024-25, 163 in 2025-26
- stays of six to 12 months: none, then 26, then 37
- stays of one to two years: 6, then 12, then 2
The council’s spending on temporary accommodation was £987,000 in 2023-24 and £1,298,000 in 2024-25. It fell to £887,000 in 2025-26. The council has an agreement with West Kent Housing Association and Moat for up to 46 self-contained temporary homes in the district, so households can stay local rather than be housed elsewhere. (Sevenoaks District Council, Homelessness and Rough Sleeper Strategy Review)
The committee report warns that costs are still a risk. “As homelessness has risen the Council has incurred increasing costs, as more households have been accommodated in temporary housing,” it says. (Sevenoaks District Council, committee report)
The rent gap
The review sets local rents from Home.co.uk in May 2026 against the Local Housing Allowance, the most housing benefit will pay towards a private rent. In Sevenoaks town the weekly gap is:
| Size | Housing allowance (High Weald) | Average rent, Sevenoaks town | Weekly shortfall |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 bedroom | £184.11 | £305.76 | £121.65 |
| 2 bedrooms | £247.40 | £421.15 | £173.75 |
| 3 bedrooms | £304.47 | £539.13 | £234.66 |
| 4 bedrooms | £420.00 | £690.46 | £270.46 |
In Swanley, under the North West Kent rate, the shortfall runs from £121.40 a week for a one-bedroom home to £170.14 for four bedrooms. (Sevenoaks District Council, Homelessness and Rough Sleeper Strategy Review)
By our arithmetic, the two-bedroom gap in Sevenoaks town comes to about £9,000 a year. The review says this is why many landlords are reluctant to take tenants on benefits. It also notes the median house price in the district was £475,000 in the year to September 2024, the highest in Kent, at 13.2 times annual earnings against 7.7 across England. For more on what renting costs, see our Sevenoaks average rent page.
Rough sleeping
On a single night in November 2025, the council reported 6 people sleeping rough across the district. Over 2025-26 it received reports of 172 people sleeping rough. It verified 55 of them; the other 117 reports had too little detail to follow up, or the person could not be found. (Sevenoaks District Council, Homelessness and Rough Sleeper Strategy Review)
Outreach was run by the charity Porchlight. Since March 2026 the council has done it in-house, with its own Housing Outreach Support Worker. The council secured £210,828 from the Rough Sleeping Prevention and Recovery Grant in 2025-26, plus £89,000 from the Rough Sleeping Accommodation Programme. That money supports accommodation at Vine Court Road and Orchard Close with West Kent Housing Association. The council says residents there move on after four months on average.
Social homes
The housing register held 1,165 live applications in April 2026, including 43 households aged 80 or over. Social lets through the register were 251 in 2025-26, of which 44 went to homeless households. (Sevenoaks District Council, Homelessness and Rough Sleeper Strategy Review)
New affordable homes completed in the district rose from 26 in 2022-23 to 61 in 2024-25; the 2025-26 figure is not yet confirmed. The council has also committed £7.693m of Section 106 money from developers, which it says will deliver up to 149 affordable homes by 2029, subject to planning. Of those, 102 would be social housing, and 35 have been delivered so far.
What it means for residents
- If you have been asked to leave, or your tenancy is ending, contact the council early. The prevention duty applies when you are at risk of homelessness within 56 days, and the review shows most of the team’s work now happens at that stage. Start at the council’s homelessness prevention and support page.
- If you are worried about someone sleeping rough, the council has a rough sleeper advice and report page.
- Landlords can let through the Sevenoaks Landlords Hub, which offers free tenant matching and landlord insurance. It rehoused 27 households in 2025-26.
What happens next
The Housing and Health Advisory Committee considered the strategy on Tuesday 6 October; its minutes are not yet published. Twenty people answered the council’s online survey, and 65% of them supported the overall proposals. Cabinet takes the strategy on 20 October. If Full Council adopts it on 1 December, it takes effect on 4 December. (Sevenoaks District Council, committee report)
The same meeting also looked at a new Housing Allocations Policy, which sets who can join the housing register. We previewed it in our council week ahead, and covered the strategy’s first draft in July in our homelessness consultation report.
Sources
- Sevenoaks District Council, Homelessness and Rough Sleeper Strategy Review, September 2026 (Appendix 1)
- Sevenoaks District Council, Homelessness and Rough Sleeper Strategy 2026-2031, report to the Housing and Health Advisory Committee
- Sevenoaks District Council, Housing and Health Advisory Committee, 6 October 2026, agenda and papers
- Sevenoaks District Council, homelessness prevention and support
Image: Sevenoaks District Council Offices by Richard Kelly, CC BY 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons. Chart by Sevenoaks Online.
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