by Ismail Khwaja

It's feared there could be hundreds of young people in Kent who will be homeless this Christmas.

According to charity Centrepoint, there were 488 people aged 16 to 24 in the county without a permanent roof over their heads in the last financial year.

Medway had the highest number with 84 and 224 people also received support for housing and/or homelessness from the council.

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Swale had the second highest number of young homeless with 75, followed by Maidstone where 68 were either sleeping rough or living in temporary accommodation.

Abi Gill, policy and research manager at Centrepoint, said: "We’re estimating that 1,900 will be homeless or at risk of homelessness at Christmas in the south east of England.

"It's obviously really concerning and actually we estimate across England its 18,000.

"None of those young people should be facing this, especially over Christmas."

Ashford (8), Sevenoaks (11), Tunbridge Wells (13) and Tonbridge and Malling (13) had the least amount of young people.

Although, 237 people in Tunbridge Wells were given help - the most in Kent.

Ms Gill added: “The biggest cause of youth homelessness is family break downs.

"That’s a really complex issue and there’s often a lot of things going on behind that.

"For example, poverty can cut across that, poor mental health, unemployment – there’s lots of quite complex issues that can lead to the young person needing to leave home because it’s just not a safe place for them to be."

A leading charity last week described homeless figures in Kent as "shocking" after it emerged almost 5,000 people were revealed to be without a permanent roof over their heads.