Auckland Council’s Community Committee is urging the Government to help the city as rates of homelessness grow.

This comes as new data shows the number of people sleeping rough in the city has gone up by 53 percent since September.

Committee Chair, Councillor Angela Dalton, says she's never seen a spike like this before.

She also explained that this tied in with a number of other changing factors that were putting significant stress on Aucklanders. 

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