No young person’s life should be defined by homelessness. Regardless of the cause or how complex the issues, we’ll work through it together.
For 50 years, we’ve been the centre point for change. Working together with young people, we’re at the forefront of tackling youth homelessness and its causes, equipping each young person with the skills and abilities to open up their futures.
Ending youth homelessness by 2037 means:
- the number of young people who face homelessness is reduced to a negligible few.
- there is a safe and stable place to live for every young person facing homelessness.
- there is support and a permanent home as soon as they are ready to live independently.
With your support, we can be the turning point for young people to build a future they can thrive in.
We want to end youth homelessness by 2037
Why 2037? Because we aspire to end homelessness for the next generation. As the UK’s leading youth homelessness charity, we will deliver exemplar services for young people, and use the insight from these to campaign, influence, and orchestrate systemic change.
We can’t do it alone – we must work together to end youth homelessness for good.
Why we do it
When it comes to youth homelessness, the system is broken. Young people are facing homelessness through no fault of their own, and have nowhere safe to turn – which is why we’re here to help.
129,000 young people asked for help from their local council in 2021/22 because they were homeless or at risk of homelessness. That’s one young person facing homelessness every four minutes.
A quarter of vulnerable young people have £5 or less a week to live off after they’ve paid their rent and bills.
Fewer than a fifth of landlords would be happy letting to a tenant receiving Universal Credit.
Between January and March 2023 more than one in ten young people were not in employment, education or training.
How will we end youth homelessness?
Our mission to end youth homelessness is rooted by four key pillars:
Optimise
We need to make our services as effective as possible – starting right here. Our website. In order to connect to young people experiencing homelessness, we want to be the number one location for information and advice, so we can ensure we reach young people in the moment of need. We have a section of our site dedicated to the crucial information and advice that we know young people want from us.
Prevent
In order to end youth homelessness by 2037, we need to stop the cause of homelessness in its tracks. We aim to do this by ensuring young people get the help they need, before they reach a moment of crises.
From help into housing to advice on claiming benefits without a fixed address, our Helpline supports young people at whatever stage they’re at in their journey, and works with them to get the crucial support they need.
Our partnerships team work with other organisations and collectively, we reach thousands of homeless young people, thanks to a genuine understanding of emerging issues. By joining together, we have a stronger national policy voice to speak out on behalf of vulnerable young people.
Support
It’s incredibly important to us that young people experiencing homelessness receive the support they need whilst in our care. From education and employment to health, budgeting and life skills, Centrepoint services are designed with young people’s wellbeing in mind. We support them in taking the first step to independence.
Our buildings are ‘psychologically informed environments’: young people who have experienced homelessness have often faced neglect and abuse – the impact of this can continue to affect their thinking and behaviour long after they have escaped that environment. Centrepoint services and accommodation are developed to take the psychological and emotional needs of vulnerable young people into account, creating a safer space for them to grow.
Amplify
We want to amplify the voices of young people and promote solutions that break the cycle of youth homelessness. We aim to do this by looking at the issues that affect homeless young people the most and using this research to influence changes in the policies that matter most to them.
We focus on areas of policy including housing, family and health. We also campaign to ensure homeless young people are getting the right support when it comes to their benefits and personal finance, education, skills and employment opportunities.
We cannot do this without the support of other organisations, and work together with our key partners to deliver services aimed at reducing youth homelessness.
And we can’t do it without you, our supporters.
Join the fight – help us in our campaigning journey
Want to work for Centrepoint?
If you’re excited about our mission and want to learn more about positions that are open at Centrepoint, take a look at our current job opportunities – we look forward to hearing from you!
