The St Basils Youth Hub opened a year ago in November 2010. The Youth Hub is an assessment centre run by St Basils in partnership with Birmingham City Council's Homeless Service and Children, Young People and Families directorate, and is a central point where young people who are actually homeless or at risk can go for advice and to have their needs assessed to then be matched with the most appropriate housing options and services.
In the last year the Youth Hub has had 3568 referrals for young people aged 16-25 in housing need. In December 2010 the Hub had 217 referrals, the following month this jumped to 344, in May 2011 this rose to 390 referrals and in July 435. On average the hub has had around 400 referrals per month. In October 2011, referrals rose by 9.2% on the previous month, 106 of those referred last month were 16 and 17 year olds.
The overwhelming reason why young people referred to the Youth Hub cited they were homeless or at risk of homelessness was due to family conflict. In the last 3 months, 85 cited financial issues, 70 were leaving care and 45 cited Domestic Violence.
In the last 3 months, 577 young people cited ‘Family Conflict’ as the reason they had become homeless or at risk of homelessness. There are lots of factors at the moment that are putting more strain on families. Nationally, 1 in 5 young people aged 16-25 are unemployed and looking for work. The rise in house prices and rental costs in recent years has created a situation where young people remain in the family home well beyond the age of official ‘adulthood’ and many young graduates, having enjoyed temporary independence whilst at university upon graduating have no option but to return to the family home. Meanwhile there is greater pressure on parents who may have been made redundant or if they are in work, due to pay freezes and rises in the cost of living, will find that their pay doesn’t stretch as far.
St Basils has a number of services that can address and even work to prevent these causes of youth homelessness.
St Basils has a Family Mediation service, for young people aged 13 – 25 and their families. The service tries to re-open channels of communication and restore strong connections with young people and their parents or carers to prevent young people reaching a ‘crisis’ point and leaving home in an unplanned way or if they have already left this service aims to smooth relations to try and enable them to return to the family home.
However if they find they are unable to return home, we have 27 accommodation projects with rooms available for around 400 young people across Birmingham and North Worcestershire.
For young care leavers, we have a Supported Lodgings scheme called Home2Home, where young people aged 16 -21 can lodge in someone’s home, but will receive some support to learn basic life skills such as how to do their own washing or cook a meal so that they can become independent.
This is one of the central aims of St Basils; to encourage and provide opportunities for the young people we work with to become independent, both in terms of having their own tenancy and having the necessary Life Skills to maintain it. We also have an extensive Learning, Skills and Work programme to support young people into further education or to help them find job opportunities so young people can become financially independent as well and move on with their lives. All young people need support, as they grow up and come across situations they may not have experienced before; most young people will turn to a family member for advice. For our young people we offer a floating support service, visiting young people once they have moved on and have their own tenancy to advise them and help them resolve any problems.
However in the current climate of government cuts, the level of funding we receive to provide the support to young people in our accommodation projects is under threat. This is all happening at a time when, as the stats from the Youth hub reveal, our services have never been more needed.
Cuts to government funding streams means charitable donations from our local communities can have all the more impact. It’s our individual supporters, local community groups, trust and local businesses that can really help us to maintain the essential services that St Basils provides to vulnerable young people.
For ideas on how you and get involved and support St Basils, please visit our fundraising page: www.stbasils.org.uk/support_us
