Last year, 129,000 16–25-year-olds approached their council for help to avoid becoming homeless. That’s 353 young people a day. A new young person every 4 minutes. The future of our nation abandoned to the harm of homelessness. We think they deserve better. We demand better.
And this number is only the tip of the iceberg. Many young people don’t even speak to their council and there are thousands more who are among the hidden homeless, navigating between friend’s sofas and the fear of the streets. Frontline charities report that only around half of those using their services have contacted their council, indicating that the true scale of youth homelessness in the UK is much higher. It could easily be double the number of young people without a safe home every year and with the fallout of COVID and the cost-of-living crisis, it’s getting worse.
Youth homelessness is at an all-time high and no one is talking about it. Even worse, there is no national plan to end this!
The scale of the issue may be unseen but the solutions are not. Young people’s experiences of homelessness are different from other age groups, so the solutions need to be different too. We know what works, that’s why we are calling for cross-departmental strategy to end youth homelessness.
The strategy prioritises:
- Prevention – supporting young people to avoid crisis in the first place
- Housing – better, safer options in place to catch and support those facing homelessness
- Finances – fairer pay and resources so young people can build successful, independent lives
Together, as a coalition of homelessness and youth organisations, we’re calling on the major political parties to adopt our Strategy to End Youth Homelessness as a manifesto commitment.
Join us from 12 June to campaign #129kNoPlan
