HUNDREDS of households in South Somerset were tipped into homelessness during the first 18 months of the coronavirus pandemic, figures reveal.

Housing charity Shelter said thousands of families across the country have become homeless during the Covid-19 crisis, and with living costs rising, more are at risk now.

Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities figures show that 550 households in South Somerset sought council support after becoming homeless between April 2020 and the end of September 2021.

Of those, 174 were households with children.

Across England, 222,360 households have been pushed into homelessness since April 2020 – equivalent to a city three times larger than South Somerset.

Shelter said if someone has become repeatedly homeless over the 18 months, they would appear in the figures multiple times – though the charity estimates this to be a very small number of cases.

In South Somerset, 75 households needed help because they were homeless over this time – down from 92 during the same period in 2020.

And Crisis said there are even more people across England "slipping through the cracks" who are not recorded in these figures.