Farron: Soaring homelessness is an utter disgrace

We know that Tim Farron is passionate about tackling homelessness. It's the issue that famously brought him into politics as a teenager. In November last year, he took part in a sleep out with Centrepoint. Here is his bleary-eyed wake-up video:

Today, figures revealed a 16% rise in the number of people sleeping on the streets. It's absolutely heartbreaking to think that there are over 4,000 people with nowhere else to go. These people need help - right now..

Tim said:

Soaring homelessness is an utter disgrace in twenty first century Britain. Britain is one of the richest places on earth, it is a stain on our nation's conscience that thousands of people are still sleeping rough on the streets every night.

I believe you judge a society on how it treats its most vulnerable, in this the Tories are failing and more than that, they hurting those who need the most help.

It's a symptom of the housing crisis that the Government is not doing enough to tackle. As well as inadequate social housing, we now have an expanding private rented sector which is too often unstable, unsafe and unaffordable, and renters can end up homeless through no fault of their own. No-one should sleep rough on our streets and the government should start a war on homelessness to end it once and for all.