A CHARITY has warned of the “harsh reality” of sofa surfing as it reopens its Christmas centres.

Almost 4700 homeless people used centres run by Crisis last year in Edinburgh, Swansea, Newcastle, Birmingham, Coventry, Oxford and London. As it reopens the centres for this festive period, Crisis has released “shocking” figures about hidden homelessness.

Sofa surfing, where individuals sleep on the floors and couches of friends, is understood to be the most common form of homelessness. Interviews with more than 100 people living this way found it has harmed the mental health of four in five of them due to insecurity and feeling “like a burden” to others.

Three in five felt isolated, with many seeing friends and family less often because of shame over their living situation.

READ MORE: 12,000 children homeless in Scotland last Christmas

And three quarters reported deteriorating health due to extreme back and neck pain, fatigue and poor diet due to lack of access to cooking facilities.

One in three of those interviewed had been sofa surfing for between six months and three years and almost two in five had stayed in five or more different places in the past year.

Danielle, 28, told Crisis she’d left her home to flee an abusive partner and her council judged that she had made herself intentionally homeless by leaving their shared tenancy. She said: “When the council refused to help me out, I had no idea what to do. I had no family nearby who I could stay with. One friend let me stay on her bedroom floor for a few weeks while I began to go through the court system to try and get off the tenancy I shared with my ex-partner.

“Another friend then said I could stay on his sofa, but it was only a one bed flat, and it was massively overcrowded.

“He was a nurse working day and night shifts and I was still a student in the day while working at a cinema in the evening, so I would often be asleep while he would be trying to eat his breakfast, and vice versa. It was really difficult – even things like getting dressed in private was impossible. Because I was going through a lot of trauma at the time, I was just constantly crying and angry. Having to stay like this ruined our friendship for a while.

“I’ve thought about it quite a lot, but honestly there was no Plan B.”

READ MORE: Scottish library to open its doors to homeless people on Christmas Day

The Edinburgh centre is open to guests from December 25-28 and on January 1. Those who attend will have access to food, washing facilities and a bed for the night in a warm and comfortable environment, as well as advice on housing, work and benefits.

Crisis chief executive Jon Sparkes said: “We know homelessness causes untold human suffering. Too many people in our society are facing unbearable pressures, forced to sleep on sofas and floors night after night after night. The harsh reality of sofa surfing is clear to see here – people trapped in this situation with no way out and every day facing the worry that today could be the day they are asked to leave, with nowhere else to go. None of us should be forced to live this way.”

Turning to the new Tory team in Westminster, he went on: “This research acts as a shameful reminder to the new government that tackling homelessness must be treated as a top priority in the coming months to ensure more people are not forced into this situation. We know homelessness can be ended in the UK.”