Only 4 per cent the richest households in a London borough which has the country’s highest number of rough sleepers donated to a homeless fund to help relieve the crisis.

Almost a year ago, the Conservative council in Westminster asked households in the highest council tax band to consider paying an extra £833 to help the young, homeless and lonely.

But figures released this week revealed that just 644 properties or just over 4 per cent of about 15,800 band H homes valued at more than £320,000, had contributed.

Adam Hug, the leader of the council's Labour group, said the sum was a “drop in the ocean” compared with cuts to homelessness services in the area which has the lowest council tax rates in the country.

Since its launch on 7 March last year, the “community contribution scheme” has raised £603,009.

The Stats: Homelessness in the UK Show all 10 1 /10 The Stats: Homelessness in the UK The Stats: Homelessness in the UK Sleeping rough up 165% from 2010 The total number of people counted or estimated to be sleeping rough on a single night in autumn 2018 was 4,677, up 2,909 people or 165% from the 2010 total of 1,768 Getty The Stats: Homelessness in the UK London rough sleepers up 13% The number of people sleeping rough increased by 146 or 13% in London since 2017 AFP/Getty The Stats: Homelessness in the UK London accounted for 27% of people sleeping rough in England London accounted for 27% of the total number of people sleeping rough in England. This is up from 24% of the England total in 2017 Getty The Stats: Homelessness in the UK 64% of rough sleeps UK nationals 64% were UK nationals, compared to 71% in 2017 AFP/Getty The Stats: Homelessness in the UK 14% of rough sleepers are women 14% of the people recorded sleeping rough were women, the same as in 2017 Getty The Stats: Homelessness in the UK 6% were aged 25 years or under, compared to 8% in 2017 AFP/Getty The Stats: Homelessness in the UK Thousands of families staying in temporary housing Almost 79,000 families were staying in temporary housing in the last three months of 2017 because they didn't have a permanent home, compared with 48,010 in the same period eight years before Getty The Stats: Homelessness in the UK Reduction in families living in temporary housing before Coalition government There had been a significant reduction in families living in such conditions before the Coalition government came into power, with the number having fallen by 52 per cent between 2004 and 2010 under the Labour government AFP/Getty The Stats: Homelessness in the UK Families staying in temporary has risen since But the figure has crept up in each of the past seven years, from 69,140 in the last quarter of 2015, to 75,740 in the same period in 2016 and 78,930 at the end of last year Getty The Stats: Homelessness in the UK Nearly 58,000 families accepted as homeless (2018) Nearly 58,000 families have been accepted as homeless by their local council in the past year (as of March 2018), equating to an increase of 8 per cent over the last five years Getty

This will be spent on youth services, helping rough sleepers off the streets and supporting the isolated.

A Westminster City Council spokesman said a “significant number” of properties had overseas owners or were unoccupied.

“Those replying have been both enthusiastic and generous – in several cases offering donations up to £10,000,” he added.

Band H households received a letter with their council tax bill in March asking them to consider voluntarily paying double their normal council tax amount.

Those who did not initially contribute to the scheme were sent a follow-up letter in November.

Council leader Nickie Aiken said the contributions showed wealthy householders cared about their neighbourhoods.

“When we first floated the idea of a community contribution scheme, cynics said it would flop, and that wealthy householders didn’t care what happened in their neighbourhoods,” she said. “The hundreds of thousands of pounds being allocated today shows they do care – and they are quite specifc about what they want this money to go towards.”

Mr Hug meanwhile, welcomed any new money but said contributions “are dwarfed by the scale of the challenge”, with millions cut from the borough’s rough sleeping contracts in recent years.

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“We just need to be honest that it’s a drop in the ocean compared to the scale of the cuts Westminster has faced year on year with another £36 million in cuts due this year,” he added.

Government figures last month showed Westminster was the local authority with the largest number of rough sleepers in England during a snapshot carried out on a night last autumn.