Stepping up action to prevent youth homelessness

Published	7 March 2007

Housing Minister Yvette Cooper today voiced concerns at the persistent problem of young people who are forced to leave the family home and end up staying with a succession of friends or relatives.

Yvette Cooper announced a new package of measures to help reduce and prevent youth homelessness. More than a third of new cases of homelessness last year were young people aged under 25. Just under a quarter of people who became homeless over that period were forced to leave their last home because parents were no longer willing to accommodate them.

Yvette Cooper said that we have tackled the worst of forms of homelessness, reducing rough sleeping and ending the scandal of families with children living in bed and breakfast accommodation. But the changing face of homelessness means we need to urgently address the new challenge of preventing youth homelessness.

In a major speech to Centrepoint, Yvette Cooper said;

"Young people being forced to leave the family home has become one of the biggest causes of homelessness.

"As a result, we are seeing a persistent problem of young people moving from one place to the next without ever having a proper home, which can impact severely on their life chances and put them out of reach of support services.

"Children and young people can face the most severe consequences if they experience homelessness, which can haunt them for the rest of their lives. That is why we made it a priority to help families with children out of bed and breakfast accommodation. But is also why we need to do more to help young people who find themselves homeless alone.

"This new partnership with the voluntary sector will help young people move away from the damaging cycle of homelessness through schemes like supported lodgings, giving them the stability and support they need to move back to a settled home."

The package of announcements include;

A new partnership with YMCA England and Centrepoint to deliver a National Youth Homelessness scheme, including developing a network of supported lodgings schemes across England and ensuring young people have access to them. This will provide short-term respite support to young people, giving them a place to stay whilst they work through problems and increase the chances they can return to the family home
Setting up a committee of formerly homeless young people, who will advise Ministers directly on policy by sharing their experience and concerns. The causes of homelessness are complex and Ministers want both national Government and local Government to have a greater understanding of what factors it needs to put more emphasis on to prevent young people becoming homeless in the first place.
Establishing a new Centre of Excellence in every region where those councils that have already made good progress in tackling youth homelessness will share expertise with neighbouring councils and agencies. This will aim to step up prevention by making mediation services between guardians and young people more available as well as increasing expertise available through-out the country.
A new National Homelessness Advice Service is also being launched in partnership with Shelter and the Citizens Advice Bureau (CAB). This will give everyone across the country the opportunity to access homelessness advice through trained advisers at CABs, to prevent their family from becoming homeless.

These measures build on those announced by Communities Secretary Ruth Kelly last November, including a new target to end the use of bed and breakfast accommodation for 16 and 17 year olds by 2010.

The minister also launched 'Foundations for Life', a new project between Centrepoint and LandAid. It is a new venture that will see the transformation of hostels into learning centres that will provide young homeless people with opportunities for work and training opportunities.

Yvette Cooper also announced the allocation of £16 million to voluntary organisations to help prevent all forms of homelessness. This money is part of our £74m Homelessness Grant for 2007/08 to prevent and tackle homelessness.

Notes to editors

1. The event coincides with the publication of a youth homelessness policy briefing, which sets out plans for the new national youth homelessness scheme. This can be found at; Tackling Youth Homelessness - Policy Briefing 18

2. On 14 November, Ruth Kelly announced a package of measures to prevent and tackle youth homelessness, through;

a. a commitment that by 2010, no 16 or 17 year olds should be placed in bed and breakfast accommodation by a local authority under the homelessness legislation, except in an emergency;
b. improving access to family mediation schemes to prevent youth homelessness;
c. establishing supported lodgings schemes across the country by launching a new national supported lodgings development scheme.

3. The latest homelessness statistics were released on 11th December 2006. These can be found at: Statutory Homelessness: 3rd Quarter 2006 - England

4. The Government's homelessness strategy - Sustainable Communities: settled homes; changing lives was published on 14 March 2005.

5. The strategy takes forward innovative measures announced in ODPM's 5 year plan Sustainable Communities: Homes for All, supported by increased investment in homelessness prevention from £60 million in 2005/06 to £74 million in 2007/08. It includes a target to cut the number of households living in temporary accommodation by half by 2010 also sets out steps to provide more settled homes and initiatives across Government departments to tackle the wider symptoms and causes of homelessness, including action on health, employment, relationship breakdown, services for children and other associated issues.

6. In the third quarter of 2006 the total number of homelessness acceptances was 19,390 a reduction of 22 per cent over the same period last year and a 46 per cent reduction compared to the recent peak in Q3 2003.

7. 93,090 households were in temporary accommodation on 30 September 2006, 8 per cent lower than the same date in 2005.