For every one person sleeping rough on the street, there is another living in a car or a tent, figures suggest.
Publishing the new research on Sunday, Crisis insisted the underlying causes of homelessness could only be tackled by changes in government policy.
The government said it is investing £1.2bn to alleviate the problem.
The new research on homelessness, carried out for Crisis by researchers at Heriot-Watt University in Edinburgh, suggested:
Homelessness increased every year between 2012 and 2017
38,000 under-25s and 4,200 over-65s are estimated to be homeless
170,800 households are experiencing the most extreme forms of homelessness, compared to 151,600 in 2012. This includes people who are sofa-surfing, living in hostels and rough sleeping
12,300 people are sleeping rough and a similar number of people (12,000) are living in cars, tents or public transport - double the amount compared to 2012
Crisis released the statistics as it prepares to open up its Christmas centres for homeless people.
It comes after the number of deaths of homeless people were published for the first time ever earlier this week. The Office for National Statistics found almost 600 homeless people died in England and Wales last year.
The average age of death was 44 for homeless men and 42 for homeless women, compared with 76 for men and 81 for women among the rest of the population