The shocking number of families and children who will be homeless in Greater Manchester this Christmas

This Christmas, 16,500 people will be homeless across Greater Manchester, according to a charity. Half of them will be children.

The statistics, compiled by Shelter, show one in 20 homeless English children are found in our region. Bosses believes the data is likely to be an underestimate, suggesting there will be more kids without a home in Greater Manchester than the estimated total of 7,896.

Mayor Andy Burnham believes the roots of the region's child homelessness problem lies with housing benefit levels. He said during a press conference on Tuesday (December 10): "The freezing of Local Housing Allowance has very detrimental impacts on children in Greater Manchester because of the development of the city, the growth we’ve got, rents are rising here faster than in other parts of the north.

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"Therefore, if you freeze local housing allowance, it really hurts. The gap opens up more quickly between the benefit people are getting and the rent they are paying.

"The only answer is to start building more truly affordable homes, more council homes. Our councils are trying, but we would call on the government in the spending review to really get behind us and try and build council homes at scale across all 10 boroughs. That, in the end, is the only answer."

While all 10 boroughs of Greater Manchester are dealing with homelessness, the problem is acute in the city of Manchester, where Shelter says 4,326 children are homeless and 9,042 people do not have a home.

That means, according to the charity's estimates, 2.7 per cent of all homeless people in England are found in the city, which has just over one per cent of the country's population.

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