Fears have been raised over a "perfect storm" of homelessness after the plight of a nurse who spent Christmas sleeping in her car hit headlines this week.
Nikki Campbell, 42, described how she ended up spending Christmas sleeping on New Brighton promenade after losing her accommodation on December 23 due to the relationship with a family member breaking down.
Nikki, who works at the Royal Liverpool Hospital but was living in Wallasey, struggled to get help from Wirral and Liverpool Councils - although Wirral Council found her accommodation at the YMCA hostel in Birkenhead hours after the ECHO made contact.
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One of the issues facing Nikki was a seemingly mistaken interpretation of the so-called 'local connection' rule, legislation that stipulates when local authorities are able to help someone sleeping rough.
According to the rules, a local connection can be established in various ways including living in an area for more than six out of the previous 12 months and working locally.
The ECHO recently reported on the case of a man understood to be sleeping rough in a tent in Garston, who was initially turned down for help because he was originally from Manchester and had left the city due to threats.
Solicitor Siobhan Taylor-Ward of Vauxhall Law Centre, who specialises in housing and homelessness, said some councils are not conducting proper assessments before telling desperate people "we cannot help you".
She told the ECHO: "I would say that local connection itself is probably not the major issue. Local connection is part of the law that applies to everyone and I understand that local budgets have to be protected.
"But we're seeing things where somebody, without an obvious local connection, might say they have been made homeless and they will be told 'we can't help'.
"That's not how it's supposed to work. The local authorities are supposed to conduct an assessment on everyone and if they think there is not a local connection they are supposed to refer you to a different local authority who could help.
"It seems as though the housing teams have been using it to turn people away at the first instance when that's not supposed to happen.
"We are hearing that the housing options teams are waiting to hear very specific wording when people are asking for help and if those people do not understand the process, and don't have advice, they would not know that wording, and they will get turned away."
Ms Taylor-Ward said she had deep concerns about different pressures coming to bear on vulnerable people and driving them into homelessness.
When the first covid lockdown hit the UK in March 2020, the government provided emergency funding to all local authorities so they could find shelter for any rough sleeper in their patch regardless of local connection or immigration status.
Councils used the money to put homeless people up in hotels, student accommodation and B&Bs - but were told the tap would be turned off in June this year.
Liverpool and Sefton Councils continued the scheme using their own funds until August, but now local connection rules are back in place.
She said: "I don't have numbers to share but I can say on the ground it feels pretty horrible right now.
"There is a lot of pressure on the system. With the pandemic, evictions had been paused but they are up and running again, although they are still slower than before which is the only reason it has not become a flood."
Siobhan said from her firm's work providing legal advice it is clear that covid related pressures, including job losses and the effects of severe illness, have increased the number of people finding themselves in rent arrears.
Vauxhall Law Centre has also seen cases of women fleeing domestic abuse wrongly classes as a "relationship breakdown" by local authority housing or outreach workers, meaning support is unlikely to be provided immediately.
Siobhan said: "There are kinds of reasons related to covid, and for people in the private rental sector there are a lot of landlords who are not really interested in the reasons and will evict them for falling into arrears.
"The private sector is a mess at the moment, the quality of the housing, the rise in prices, and we just don't have enough social houses."
Vauxhall Law Centre has also seen cases of women fleeing domestic abuse wrongly classes as a "relationship breakdown" by local authority housing or outreach workers, meaning support is unlikely to be provided immediately.
Siobhan said many people who end up facing eviction proceedings do not realise they have grounds to challenge the landlord's decision and often do not attend court to dispute it.
With council budgets under increasing pressure and economic uncertainties remaining, there are fears that rough sleeping could increase sharply.
Siobhan added: "It just feels like a perfect storm."
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