We are among the 103 organisations supporting the campaign for a strategy to end youth homelessness.

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. We think they deserve better. We demand better.

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
a 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 political parties to adopt our Strategy to End Youth Homelessness as a manifesto commitment.

We’re campaigning for a #PlanForThe129k.

You can listen to Hannah’s interview with Bucks Radio on this here.

Rob Butler MP visited the Next Step Project, our home for previously homeless young people, with our CEO Hannah last Thursday afternoon. They discussed the need for across-departmental strategy to end youth homelessness with one of our residents, who shared his experience of sofa surfing and rough sleeping before moving in with us 12 months ago. ‘It’s brilliant here’, he said, ‘the staff and support have helped me turn my life around.’

We were delighted that this visit was picked up by the Housing & Homelessness Minister Felicity Buchan and shared and our work complimented.