#CharityTuesday In Conversation with…New Horizon Youth Centre

This week we spoke to Camden-based New Horizon Youth Centre to find out more about the problem of hidden homelessness and how crucial the project is for young people

What services does the centre offer?

We offer everything 16–21 year olds with nowhere to live need to avoid becoming trapped in a cycle of homelessness. We cover basic physical needs by providing hot food, showers and laundry, as well as finding them accommodation, training and employment. We also offer counselling, drug and alcohol support, health, fitness, art, music and communication skills workshops. In addition we do intensive one-to-one work with young people in prison to help them onto a more positive path and avoid either becoming homeless or being forced to return to crime upon release.

How and why did the centre come into being, and how has it evolved?

New Horizon Youth Centre was founded in 1967 by Lord Longford to address the needs of young people who were involved in drug misuse in the West End of London. Over time our mission evolved as we found that more and more young people who were unable to continue living at home due to family breakdown, abuse or other issues had nowhere they could afford to live, and were therefore being made homeless.

Our Patron, Jon Snow, worked at the centre in the early 1970’s for three years as Director before moving onto his current career as a Journalist and Broadcaster. Our current Chair, Nick Hardwick, is ex-Chief Inspector of Prisons.

Can you expand on the problem of hidden homelessness and how this relates to the government’s plans to end rough sleeping by 2027?

It’s great that work is being done to support those who are street homeless (especially those leaving prison who as mentioned above we support) however young people are overwhelmingly ‘hidden homeless’. There are very few statistics on these young people and definitely not enough being done to support them — they are not seen on the streets and so are being ignored, condemning them to eventually ending up on the streets. We are trying to intervene early when their life chances can be transformed with the right kind of support. You can read our CEO’s response to the rough sleeping strategy athttps://nhyouthcentre.org.uk/news/2018/08/13/hidden-thus-forgotten

What would you say is the most crucial part of the Youth Centre project?

Obviously housing is the most pressing need for the young people who come here, and it’s not an easy problem to solve as the real issue is that there is simply not enough affordable housing available. Many young people who come here are on minimum wage jobs earning just £5.90 per hour as there’s no living wage for under 25s. They’re unable to live at home, often because their family have kicked them out for any number of reasons, perhaps rejecting them because they’ve come out — LGBT+ people are over-represented amongst the young and homeless. Private rent is unaffordable on such a low wage but they won’t be deemed as in priority need by their local authority so they end up with absolutely nowhere to go but friend’s sofas or night buses. Our advice team try to get them into emergency accommodation to start with — which is a challenge as there’s only one shelter open year round — and then we do continuing work with them to improve their employment situation and find a longer term accommodation solution. We’ve recently moved into providing more affordable housing ourselves as there’s so little of it around.

Do you have an example of someone you’ve supported and the impact your help had?

Every day there are successes here, some may seem small, for example we have many young people who’ve come from chaotic backgrounds and/or are suffering from mental health issues, for whom something like turning up on time for a housing appointment or contributing to a workshop is a big deal. Bigger steps are around young people becoming self sufficient, and in 2017 we helped 508 young people secure a job, apprenticeship or work placement. We also gave one-to-one housing support to over 1700 young people in the same period.

To find our more about New Horizon Youth Centre, click here.

Twitter: @NHyouthcentre

Facebook: @nhyouthcentre